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HENRI  BERGSON 

A STUDY 

IN  RADICAL  EVOLUTION 


BOOKS  BY  EMIL  CARL  WILM 

The  Philosophy  of  Schiller, 
Boston,  1912. 

The  Problem  of  Relioion, 
Boston,  1912. 

The  Culture  of  Religion, 
Boston,  1912. 

Translation  of  Klemm,  Ge- 

SCHICHTE  DER  PsYCHOLOGIE, 

New  York,  1914. 

Henri  Bergson:  A Study  in 
Radical  Evolution,  New 
York,  1914. 


HENRI  BERGSON 

A Study 

in  Radical  Evolution 


By 

EMIL  CARL  WILM,  Ph.D.,  LL.D. 

Professor  of  Philosophy  in  Wells  College.  Lecturer  in 
Philosophy  at  Bryn  Mawr  College 
for  1914-15 


IRew  13otft 

STURGIS  & WALTON 
COMPANY 
1914 

All  Bights  Reserved 


Copyright  1914 

Bv  STURGIS  & WALTON  COMPANY 
Set  up  and  electrotyped.  Published  October,  1914 


VAIL- BALLOU  COMPANY 
BINGHAMTON  AND  NEW  YORK 


TO 

MRS.  MAX  PIUTTI 

DEAN  OF  WELLS  COLLEGE 
IN  HONOR  AND  RESPECT 


Die  blosse  Reflexion  also  ist  eine  Geis- 
teskrankheit  des  Menschen  . . . welche 
sein  boheres  Daseyn  im  Keim,  sein 
geistiges  Leben,  welches  nur  aus  der 
Identitat  hervorgeht,  in  der  Wurzel 
totet.  Sie  ist  ein  libel  das  den  Men- 
schen selbst  ins  Leben  begleitet  und  auch 
fur  die  geraeineren  Gegenstande  der 
Betrachtung  alle  Anschauung  in  ihm 
zerstort. 

Scbelling  — Ideen  zu  einer  Philoso- 
phie  der  Natur. 


PREFACE 


This  little  book  is  intended  to  be  a brief  and 
comparatively  non-technical  statement  of  Berg- 
son’s philosophy  which  shall  be  intelligible  to  the 
general  reader  who  wishes  to  know  something 
of  this  much  talked-of  philosopher.  Although 
fully  recognising  that  such  a book  would  meet  a 
widely  felt  and  entirely  legitimate  demand,  I 
have  not  undertaken  it  without  some  misgivings. 
It  is  always  difficult  to  do  justice  to  a writer 
when  one  has  to  lift  his  leading  ideas  out  of  the 
context  in  which  they  properly  belong.  And  I 
have  no  illusions  of  having  succeeded  completely 
in  doing  so. 

Bergson  is  particularly  difficult  to  deal  with  in 
a summary  sketch  of  this  kind  on  account  of  the 
profusion  of  his  thought  and  the  extreme  com- 
plexity of  many  of  his  ideas.  For,  in  spite  of 
the  great  interest  of  his  teachings  and  the  charm 
of  his  manner,  Bergson  is  after  all  a technical 
writer,  one  who  can  hardly  be  treated  adequately 
without  bringing  into  requisition  considerable 
scholarly  apparatus.  With  the  subtler  compli- 
cations of  his  thought,  and  merely  teclmical  re- 


xii  Peeface 

finements,  I have  accordingly  thought  it  wise  not 
to  deal  at  all. 

There  is  nothing  more  puzzling,  in  fact,  to  one 
interested  in  such  things,  than  the  unexampled 
enthusiasm  over  Bergson  among  the  reading  laity 
as  well  as  among  scientists  and  professional  stu- 
dents of  philosophy.  Bergsonitis,  which  seems 
to  be  spreading  around  the  world,  is  in  most 
cases  undoubtedly  to  be  diagnosed  as  a purely 
subjective  malady,  due  either  to  a process  of 
auto-suggestion,  or,  what  is  more  likely,  to  the 
persistent  suggestive  influence  of  a misguided 
public  press.  Any  individual  case  of  this  dis- 
order can  usually  be  relieved  by  a dose  of  Berg- 
son himself,  as  almost  any  sufferer  can  prove  to 
his  complete  satisfaction.  The  case  of  the  pub- 
lic press  is  of  course  of  a different  nature,  and 
will  require  a different  treatment.  An  interna- 
tional alliance  might  in  any  case  be  formed  for 
the  suppression  of  eulogistic  pieces  which  are  not 
accompanied  by  at  least  some  explanation  of 
what  Bergson  really  teaches. 

I have  myself  not  wished  to  add  to  the  flood 
of  merely  laudatory  literature  on  Bergson,  nor 
have  I wished,  on  the  other  hand,  to  hasten  the 
disillusionment  regarding  him  by  writing  in  such 
a manner  that  the  reader  would  not  go  further. 
I have  tried,  rather,  to  afford  a clue  to  Berg- 
son’s writings  themselves,  to  which,  I hope,  the 
reader  may  be  induced  to  go  in  order  to  supple- 


Preface 


xiii 

ment,  and  often  to  correct,  the  impressions  he 
may  have  gotten  from  my  fragmentary  pages. 
I have,  indeed,  let  Bergson  speak  for  himself 
wherever  possible ; but  the  isolated  passages 
quoted  should  by  no  means  take  the  place,  with 
the  more  serious  student,  of  a more  continuous 
reading  of  the  sources. 

Bergson’s  principal  books  are  three  in  num- 
ber, all  of  them  translated  into  English.  They 
are,  to  mention  them  in  their  chronological  order, 
Tiine  and  Free  Will  (1889),  Matter  and  Mem- 
ory (1896),  and  Creative  Evolution  (1907). 
Besides  these  works  Bergson  has  written  a small 
book.  Laughter,  containing  a theory  of  the 
comic,  and  a long  list  of  articles.  Perhaps  the 
most  important  of  these  for  his  system  is  the  one 
entitled  Introduction  a la  Metaphysique,  pub- 
lished in  the  Revue  de  Metaphysique  et  de 
Morale  for  January,  1903.  An  English  trans- 
lation of  this  work  has  also  recently  been  issued. 

The  material  of  the  present  book  (up  to 
Section  XIV),  was  originally  given  as  two  pub- 
lic lectures  in  Harvard  University,  and  I have 
since  presented  the  main  part  of  it  before  a 
group  of  philosophy  students  in  Wellesley  Col- 
lege and,  subsequently,  at  an  open  meeting  of 
the  Philosophy  Club  of  Cornell  University. 
The  circumstance  of  its  oral  composition  and 
delivery  will  partly  account  for  an  occasional 
informality  and  directness  of  statement  which 


XIV 


Preface 


I have  not  been  careful  to  remove  in  preparing 
the  book  for  the  press,  as  I could  not  , assume 
that  more  than  a small  proportion  of  my 
readers  would  be  specialists  in  philosophy,  and 
as  I believed  that  the  non-philosophical  reader 
would  generally  prefer  the  informal  to  the  more 
circumstantial  and  more  carefully  modified 
presentation  suited  to  the  study  and  to  pure 
scholarship.  I have  also  moderated  the  rigour 
of  a number  of  passages  which  I was  sure,  on 
second  consideration,  could  not  possibly  be  of 
much  interest  to  any  but  comparatively  hard- 
ened philosophers. 

I have  to  thank  Professor  Lovejoy,  of  Johns 
Hopkins  University,  for  kindly  reading  the  text 
in  manuscript  and  for  offering  a number  of 
important  criticisms  and  suggestions.  I only 
I’egret  that  the  work  of  printing  had  pro- 
gressed so  far  when  his  comments  reached  me 
that  I could  not  incorporate  them  as  fully  as  I 
should  have  liked.  I have,  however,  included 
in  the  subjoined  bibliography  a list  of  Mr. 
Lovejoy’s  own  publications  on  Bergson  in 
which  the  reader  will  find  a full  exposition  of 
a number  of  points  of  first-rate  historical  and 
theoretical  interest,  such  as  the  relation  of 
leading  Bergsonian  doctrines  to  the  Romantic 
philosophy  of  1790-1806  (which  I have  myself 
commemorated  by  the  passage  from  Schelling 
prefixed  to  this  book),  and  to  certain  French 


Peeface 


XV 


neo-criticists,  and  where  he  will  also  find  a strik- 
ing criticism  of  Bergson’s  doctrine  of  time. 

My  wife  has  read  both  the  manuscript  and 
the  proof  of  the  hook,  and  made  a number  of 
very  useful  suggestions.  M.  Bergson  has  done 
me  the  honour  of  a similar  service,  which  I 
hereby  appi'eciatlvely  acknowledge.  Finally, 
my  kinsman  and  friend.  Professor  Felix 
Krueger,  of  the  University  of  Halle,  read  the 
critical  portion  of  my  text,  and  inflicted  “ faith- 
ful wounds  ” which  have  done  the  book  (and 
I trust  its  author!)  much  good. 

E.  C.  WlLM. 

Aurora-on-Cayuga,  New  York, 

Easter,  1914<. 


SECTIOl?' 


Contents 


PAGE 


I The  New  Philosophy  and  the 

Renaissance  of  Spirit  ...  3 


II  The  Apotheosis  of  Change  . . . 17 


III 

Primordial  Experience  and  Its  In- 
tellectual Reconstruction  . 

25 

IV 

The  Dismemberment  of  the  Soul  . 

31 

V 

The  Dismemberment  of  the  Soul 
(Continued) 

39 

VI 

The  External  World  and  the 
World  of  Science 

47 

VII 

Some  Further  Illustrations  of 
Scientific  Reconstruction 

57 

VIII 

The  True  Method  of  Metaphysics: 
Intuition 

65 

IX 

The  True  Method  of  Metaphysics: 
Intuition  (Continued) 

77 

X 

Of  Evolution  and  Creation 

85 

XI 

Of  Mechanism  and  Design  . 

95 

XII 

The  Freedom  of  Man  .... 

103 

XIII 

Retrospect  and  Summary 

113 

Contents 

SECTION  PAGE 

XIV  Criticism  of  Bergson:  The  Doc- 
trine OF  Pure  Change  . . .119 

XV  Criticism  of  Bergson:  The  Doc- 
trine OF  THE  Static  Concept  . 129 

XVI  Bergson  and  the  Philosophy  of 

Religion  — The  Value  of  Life  . 139 

XVII  Bergson  and  the  Philosophy  of  Re- 
ligion— The  Problem  of  Death  153 


Bibliography 179 

Index 189 


I 

THE  NEW  PHILOSOPHY  AND  THE 
EENAISSANCE  OF  SPIRIT 


I 


\ 


THE  NEW  PHILOSOPHY  AND  THE  EENAISSANCE 
OF  SPIRIT 

A GOOD  deal  has  lately  been  written  about  an 
alleged  dearth  of  men  of  letters  at  the  present 
time,  and  the  suggestion  has  more  than  once 
been  made  that  the  rapid  rise  of  science  is  largely 
responsible  for  a certain  matter-of-fact  mood 
and  a prosaic  habit  of  mind  which  are  essentially 
unfriendly  to  the  production  of  imaginative  lit- 
erature. And  when  one  tries  to  recall  the  names 
of  living  writers  whose  genius  compares  with 
that  of  the  great  literary  figures  of  the 
last  few  generations,  Goethe  and  Schiller  in 
Germany,  Browning  and  Tennyson  in  England, 
Emerson  and  Poe  in  America,  one  cannot  but 
feel  that  the  observations  referred  to  have  some 
force. 

That  disillusionment  is  a genuine  trait  of  the 
modem  mind  is  undoubtedly  true.  One  or  two 
other  considerations,  however,  must  be  kept  in 
mind.  One  is  that  fame  is  usually  acquired 
tardily.  Temporary  obscurity  must  be  the  nor- 
mal lot  of  a creative  mind  in  the  very  nature  of 
the  case,  since  the  ideas  and  forms  created  must, 
3 


Henei  Bergson 


just  because  they  are  original,  first  make  their 
way  in  the  world  before  they  can  reflect  honour 
upon  their  source.  Thus  are  genius  and  medi- 
ocrity often  indistinguishable  (a  dangerous  doc- 
trine to  promulgate)  until  time  has  told  between 
them.  And  even  time’s  judgment  may  to  the 
end  remain  vague  and  incompetent.  “ To  be 
great,”  said  Emerson,  “ is  to  be  misunder- 
stood.” 

A second  very  interesting  reason  for  the  ap- 
parent dearth  of  creative  talent  is  that  this  is 
due,  not  to  the  fact  that  there  is  no  such  talent, 
but  that  there  is  so  much.  In  an  earlier  day, 
when  the  means  of  publishing  were  meagre,  only 
a few  men  engaged  in  literature,  and  the  public 
notice  which  they  received  was  proportionately 
general.  With  the  increased  facilities  of  print- 
ing, however,  and  the  mental  stimulus  due 
thereto,  a much  greater  number  of  men  enter 
literature,  with  the  result  that  it  is  becoming 
increasingly  difficult  to  rise  above  the  great  mass 
of  talented  writers  who  are  competitors  for  pub- 
lic favour. 

The  observations  made  of  fine  literature  ap- 
ply equally  to  other  forms  of  spiritual  endeav- 
our, to  fine  art,  invention,  science,  and 
philosophy.  It  is  truly  interesting  and  re- 
markable, therefore,  when  a man  arises  who, 
amid  the  enormous  intellectual  competition  un- 
der which  he  works,  and  in  his  own  time  and 


The  New  Philosophy 


5 


generation,  achieves  the  much-coveted  distinc- 
tion of  greatness.  It  is  the  more  remarkable 
when  such  a man  arises  in  a branch  of  learning 
like  philosophy,  which  is  at  present  suffering 
wide-spread  indifference,  or  even  positive  disaf- 
fection. Paulsen  has  somewhere  divided  all 
knowledge  into  two  fundamental  kinds,  that 
which  is  capable  of  direct  application  to  the 
practical  problems  of  life,  and  that  which  gives 
an  added  insight  into  the  nature  of  the  universe 
in  which  we  live.  Granting  such  a division  to 
be  a valid  one,  philosophy  and  literature  would 
doubtless  fall  under  the  second  head.  Their 
value  is  theoretical  and  sentimental,  rather  than 
utilitarian  or  practical.  But  this  is  evidently 
not  an  age  fond  of  pure  speculation  or  of  useless 
forms  of  sentiment.  Knowledge,  to  repeat  a 
well-worn  commonplace,  has  no  value  for  itself ; 
its  only  value  lies  in  its  practical  uses,  whatever 
may  be  meant  by  this  all-embracing  piece  of 
ambiguity.  Philosophy,  particularly,  falls  un- 
der the  general  condemnation.  Unable  to  bake 
bread,  and  bringing  nothing  in  her  hand  but  the 
offerings  of  God,  freedom  and  Immortality,  she 
has  suffered  a temporary  eclipse,  while  the  more 
hopeful  members  of  the  scientific  fraternity  are 
even  ready  to  predict  her  eventual  and  ultimate 
extinction. 

In  spite  of  these  obvious  difficulties,  three 
philosophers,  at  least,  have  lately  achieved 


6 


Henei  Bergson 


world-wide  recognition,  Eucken  in  Germany, 
James  in  America,  and  Bergson  in  France.  It 
would  be  a most  fascinating  psychological  study 
to  analyse  the  type  of  mentality  represented  by 
these  various  writers  with  a view  to  finding  the 
secret  of  their  enormous  popularity.  Is  this 
popularity  only  another  illustration  of  crowd 
contagion?  In  a book  like  James’  Pragmatism 
or  Bergson’s  Creative  Evolution,  have  we  simply 
to  do  with  a case  similar  to  that  of  one  of  the 
“ ten  best  sellers  ” which  is  read  by  multitudes, 
not  on  account  of  any  intrinsic  merit  which  the 
book  possesses,  but  only  because  everybody  is 
reading  it? 

Doubtless,  crowd  contagion  plays  its  part  in 
spreading  the  reputation  of  a truly  significant 
book  as  well  as  that  of  the  latest  novel  whose 
cheapness  is  only  surpassed  by  its  hopeless  in- 
anity. The  true  explanation,  however,  must 
strike  deeper.  Philosophical  ideas,  like  other 
things,  survive  only  in  an  environment  fairly 
friendly  to  their  existence  and  support.  It  will 
therefore  likely  be  found  that  all  these  writers 
appeal  in  one  way  or  another  to  that  indefinable 
but  very  real  and  solid  thing  the  Germans  call 
Zeitgeist,  the  intellectual  atmosphere  and  tend- 
encies of  the  time.  The  analysis  of  these  writ- 
ers should,  therefore,  turn  out  to  be  also  an 
index  of  the  intellectual  temper  and  outlook  of 
their  generation.  They  are  truly  repi’esentative 


The  New  Philosophy 


7 


men,  taking  up  into  themselves  and  voicing  the 
insights  and  feelings  widely  distributed  through- 
out society,  but  too  vague  and  inarticulate  to 
find  elsewhere  clear  expression. 

It  is  interesting  to  note,  in  any  case,  that  in 
an  age  which  has  seen  the  apotheosis  of  power 
Eucken’s  system  has  been  called  activism, 
James’  pragmatism,  and  Bergson’s  activism  and 
pragmatism  in  turn.  Doubtless,  all  these  sys- 
tems are  phases  of  what  is  broadly  called  vol- 
untarism in  modem  psychology  and  philosophy, 
the  view  which  proclaims  will  or  activity  as  the 
bottom  property  of  things,  the  pivotal  reality 
of  the  universe. 

An  examination  of  the  writings  of  these  phi- 
losophers will  reveal  other  traits  which  are  com- 
mon to  their  generation.  Let  us  notice  these 
briefly. 

One  is  the  strong  feeling  of  discontent  with  the 
intellectual  achievements  of  the  past.  They 
show  almost  an  antipathy  to  the  stereotyped 
forms  in  which  traditional  thought  has  prevail- 
ingly been  cast.  They  all  alike  attack  the  rid- 
dle of  existence  in  a new  way,  or  else  seek  to 
express  old  truth  with  a new  freshness  and  sin- 
cerity. 

Another  trait  common  to  these  writers  is  their 
hearty  sympathy  with  science,  although  they 
are  ready  enough  to  criticise  science  when  it  ex- 
tends its  jurisdiction  beyond  its  legitimate  do- 


8 


Henri  Bergson 


maln.^  James  and  Bergson,  indeed,  began  their 
academic  careers  as  students  of  science,  James 
in  physiology  and  psychology,  Bergson  in 
mathematics.  The  admirable  acquaintance  of 
these  writers  with  contemporary  scientific  litera- 
ture of  both  the  physical  and  the  life  sciences 
has  done  much  to  regain  for  philosophy  the  re- 
spect of  students  of  science  which  it  has  not 
always  enjoyed.  Indeed,  science  has  a good 
deal  to  learn  from  a man  like  James,  who  was 
able  to  take  facts  as  he  found  them,  and  to 
treat  them  in  an  impartial  spirit,  even  if  they 
belonged  to  departments  of  life  which  few  men 
can  enter  without  suffering  disturbance  of  judg- 
ment. I have  in  mind,  of  course,  James’  classic 
studies  of  the  phenomena  of  the  religious  con- 
sciousness, the  results  of  which  we  have  in  his 
Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  a model  and 
a monument  for  every  future  scientific  investi- 
gator. 

There  is  a third  characteristic  which  is  com- 
mon to  all  these  writers,  and  that  is  their  effort 
to  bring  philosophy  down  from  heaven  to  earth, 

1 Mr.  Santayana  apparently  does  not  entirely  approve 
of  this.  Bergson  studies  science  conscientiously,  he 
writes  (in  his  Winds  of  Doctrine,  p.  64),  but  “with  a 
certain  irritation  and  haste  to  be  done  with  it,  somewhat 
as  a Jesuit  might  study  Protestant  theology.”  What 
Mr.  Santayana  evidently  desires  is  that  a philosopher 
shall  study  science  in  such  a way  that  he  will  not  wish 
to  criticise  it.  But  this  demand  is  surely  a trifle  ex- 
cessive. 


The  New  Philosophy  9 

to  bring  it  into  a living  relation  with  the 
problems  of  our  daily  existence.  “ The  great 
masters  of  English  and  French  philosophy,” 
Bergson  has  recently  been  quoted  as  saying, 
“ have  this  in  common  — that  philosophy  is  not 
a thing  of  schools  only ; that  it  takes  its  origin 
in  life,  and  that  if  it  passes  through  the  schools 
it  has  to  enter  again  into  life.”  In  conformity 
with  this  thought  that  philosophy  must  connect 
itself  with  the  problems  of  real  life,  all  these 
writers  seek  to  give  their  thought  an  intelligible 
and  even  an  attractive  expression.  English  and 
French  philosophy  have  another  thing  in  com- 
mon, according  to  Bergson : the  striving  for 
clearness  of  expression.  “ If  one  reads  a pas- 
sage from  Locke,”  he  recently  said,  “ of  David 
Hume,  of  Berkeley,  or  of  Mill,  or  a passage  of 
Malebranche,  or  of  Condillac,  one  arrives  at  the 
conclusion  that  there  is  no  philosophy,  however 
subtle,  however  profound,  which  cannot  express 
itself  in  language  which  every  one  can  under- 
stand.” 

Bergson’s  gifts  of  philosophic  exposition  are 
indeed  quite  extraordinary,  surpassed,  among  re- 
cent writers,  only  by  those  of  James  himself. 
It  is  not  easy  to  speak  with  moderation  of  one 
loved  and  lately  lost,  but  was  there  ever  a style 
like  James’,  combining  to  an  equal  degree 
strength  with  simplicity,  vigour  with  deftness  of 
touch,  copiousness  of  thought  with  economy  of 


10 


Henri  Bergson 


expression?  It  makes  one  think  of  a vigorous 
tree  from  which  every  dry  limb  has  been  cut 
away.  James’  style  has  not  the  blinding  bril- 
liancy of  Nietzsche’s;  it  has  become  a perfect 
medium  through  which  thought  can  pass  with 
no  perceptible  loss  from  opacity  or  refraction. 
Not  the  least  of  the  many  services  of  William 
James  to  philosophy  (especially  American 
philosophy,  which  has  not  learned  to  speak  its 
mother  tongue)  is  the  noble  heritage  of  a really 
competent  philosophic  style,  illustrated  in  such 
works  as  his  Principles  of  Psychology,  The  Will 
to  Believe,  and  Varieties  of  Religious  Experi- 
ence. 

There  is  a fourth  characteristic  of  the  new 
philosophy  which  seems  to  be  symptomatic  of  the 
new  humanistic  renaissance  that  has  been  such 
an  unmistakable  characteristic  of  the  last  de- 
cade or  two.  This  is  the  new  romanticism  or 
idealism  which  it  reflects.  The  philosophy  of 
the  last  generation,  deeply  affected  as  it  was  by 
the  results  of  physical  science,  tended  strongly 
towards  naturalism,  which  sought  to  extend  con- 
ceptions whose  employment  had  yielded  such  rich 
results  in  the  study  of  natui’e  — conceptions  like 
force,  mechanical  causation,  evolution  through 
the  survival  of  the  fittest,  etc., — to  the  universe 
as  a whole,  including  the  realms  of  life  and  mind. 
Life  and  mind  were  thus  dislocated  from  the 
strategic  place  in  the  universe  which  they  were 


The  New  Philosophy 


11 


once  supposed  to  occupy.  Man  was  a bird  on 
the  mountain,  consciousness  an  ephemeral  fea- 
ture in  the  material  universe,  destined  to  disap- 
pear as  soon  as  the  physical  conditions  making 
it  possible  should  no  longer  be  realised.  Cosmic 
purpose,  the  freedom  of  the  will,  immortality 
and  other  historical  doctrines  of  much  ethical 
and  sentimental  interest  were  so  many  fictions 
which  had  been  rendered  unworthy  by  the  in- 
crease of  knowledge. 

The  resulting  mood  was  one  of  wide-spread 
disillusionment.  The  end  of  wisdom  was  to  be 
content  with  a modest  lot,  and  to  face  uncom- 
plainingly the  eventual  extinction  awaiting  man 
and  the  race  of  men  alike.  Never  has  this  mood 
been  more  eloquently  voiced  than  by  Bertrand 
Russell  in  his  essay,  The  Freeman’s  Worship: 
“ Brief  and  powerless  is  man’s  life ; on  him  and 
all  his  race  the  slow,  sure  doom  falls  pitiless  and 
dark.  Blind  to  good  and  evil,  reckless  of  de- 
struction, omnipotent  matter  rolls  on  its  relent- 
less way;  for  man,  condemned  to-day  to  lose 
his  dearest,  to-morrow  himself  to  pass  through 
the  gate  of  darkness,  it  remains  only  to  cherish, 
ere  yet  the  blow  falls,  the  lofty  thoughts  that 
ennoble  his  little  day ; disdaining  the  coward  ter- 
rors of  the  slave  of  fate,  to  worship  at  the  shrine 
that  his  own  hands  have  built ; undismayed  by  the 
empire  of  chance,  to  preserve  a mind  free  from 
the  wanton  tyranny  that  rules  his  outward  life ; 


12 


Henri  Bergson 


proudly  defiant  of  the  irresistible  forces  which 
tolerate,  for  a moment,  his  knowledge  and  his 
condemnation,  to  sustain  alone,  a weary  but  un- 
yielding Atlas,  the  world  that  his  own  ideals 
have  fashioned  despite  the  trampling  march  of 
unconscious  power.” 

Well,  in  Eucken,  James  and  Bergson,  intrepid 
thinkers  though  they  are,  and  willing  to  follow 
truth  wherever  it  leads,  we  see  a notable  revival 
of  anthropomorphic,  humanistic  ways  of  think- 
ing, in  which  man  comes  to  his  own  again. 
Idealism,  teleology,  the  creation  of  novelty  in 
the  world,  ethical  optimism,  even  immortality, 
again  find  a significant  place  in  philosophy, 
thus  affording  a fresh  illustration  of  a state- 
ment of  William  James  written  more  than  thirty 
years  ago.  “ Nothing  could  be  more  absurd,” 
wrote  James,  “ than  to  hope  for  the  definitive 
triumph  of  any  philosophy  which  should  refuse 
to  legitimate,  and  to  legitimate  in  an  emphatic 
manner,  the  more  powerful  of  our  emotional  and 
practical  tendencies.  Fatalism,  whose  solving 
word  in  all  crises  of  behaviour  is  ‘ all  striving 
is  vain,’  will  never  reign  supreme,  for  the  im- 
pulse to  take  life  strivingly  is  indestructible  in 
the  race.” 

True,  the  idealism  of  our  newest  time  can- 
not be  the  same  idealism  that  we  knew  before 
science  and  naturalism  had  their  say.  The  new 
idealism  is  a chastened  idealism,  with  the  cruder 


The  New  Philosophy 


13 


features  of  the  older  systems  pretty  thoroughly 
left  out;  teleology  is  not  of  the  old  watch-mak- 
ing type;  optimism  rests  upon  the  possibility 
of  the  world’s  becoming  perfect  rather  than  al- 
ready being  so ; creation  is  evolutional  in  its 
method,  and  immortality  may  be  a hard-won 
conquest  rather  than  a present  gift.  The  an- 
cient idol,  it  will  be  seen,  is  on  its  base  again, 
but  it  wears  a new  aspect,  and  its  base  is  wider 
and  laid  more  deeply  than  before.  It  is  the  old 
idealism  come  to  life  again,  like  a root  which 
sends  new  branches  forth  when  the  winter  re- 
laxes its  grasp;  it  is  the  old  idealism  with  new 
features ; the  old  idealism  without  the  old  com- 
placency ; a critical,  enlightened  idealism ; an 
idealism  conscious  of  its  strength,  but  conscious, 
too,  of  the  vastness  and  the  variety  of  its  prob- 
lems, and  of  the  difficulty  of  their  eventual  solu- 
tion. 


■j 


"1 


II 

THE  APOTHEOSIS  OF  CHANGE 


II 


THE  APOTHEOSIS  OF  CHANGE 

It  is  interesting,  in  view  of  what  has  been  said, 
to  find  a writer  like  Professor  Love  joy  char- 
acterising Bergson’s  philosophy  as  an  evolution- 
ism which  is  at  once  radical  and  romantic.  The 
two  features  of  his  thought  are  in  a way  sug- 
gested by  the  title  of  his  latest  important  work, 
Creative  Evolution,  and  we  shall  have  abundant 
opportunity  to  notice  illustrations  of  this  two- 
fold aspect  of  Bergson’s  thought  as  we  become 
more  fully  acquainted  with  his  characteristic 
ideas. 

The  thoroughgoing  application  of  the  notion 
of  evolution  is  indeed  the  most  striking  aspect  of 
Bergson’s  system.  If  one  were  asked  to  state 
in  a single  sentence  the  gist  of  Bergson’s  teach- 
ing, one  could  do  no  better  than  to  repeat  the 
celebrated  Heraclitean  doctrine.  Reality  is  a 
flux.  The  only  real  aspect  of  things  is  their 
constant  mutability. 

But  the  idea  must  be  taken  heroically,  radi- 
cally. The  fundamental  doctrine  of  evolution, 

namely  that  the  world  has  not  always  been  what 
17 


18 


Henri  Bergson 


it  is,  but  that  it  has  arrived  at  its  present  stage 
of  development  gradually,  by  the  accumulation 
of  a vast  number  of  finite  changes,  is  indeed  a 
commonplace  both  of  science  and  of  popular 
thought,  and  always  has  been.  The  theory  of 
evolution  or  development,  though  often  ascribed 
to  Darwin  and  Herbert  Spencer,  is  really  of  very 
ancient  origin,  and  there  has  never  been  a time 
in  the  history  of  human  thinking,  from  Anaxi- 
mander and  Aristotle  to  Hegel  and  Bergson, 
when  it  has  not  had  its  representatives  and 
champions. 

Evolution  theories  of  the  prevalent  type, 
however,  are  after  all  only  quasi-evolutionary. 
“ Throughout  most  of  the  nineteenth  century,” 
says  Professor  Lovejoy,  “the  century  of  evolu- 
tionary ways  of  thinking  in  all  the  provinces 
of  thought,  both  the  idealistic  philosophers  and 
popular  theology  have  taken  their  evolutionism 
with  reserves  — have,  indeed,  made  it  always 
subordinate  to  its  logical  opposites  in  metaphys- 
ics, the  creationism  of  Hebrew  cosmogony  or  the 
emanationism  of  the  later  Platonists.  Both 
these  fashions  of  conceiving  the  temporal  aspect 
of  things  assumes  that  a sort  of  Being  that  is 
perfect  and  infinite  and  omnipotent  must  have 
come  first  in  the  order  of  existence  — first  logi- 
cally and  chronologically  and  causally ; and, 
what  is  more,  that  such  a Being,  even  though 
it  somehow  engenders  a world  of  beings  imper- 


The  Apotheosis  of  Change  19 


feet  and  finite  and  destined  to  struggle  and  to 
gradual  development,  remains  itself  no  less  per- 
fect and  infinite  and  unperturbed.” 

But  if  we  are  to  adopt  the  flowing  philosophy 
under  the  leadership  of  Bergson  we  must  do  so 
heartily  and  wholly:  we  must  eliminate  the  last 
vestige  of  the  static  and  the  permanent,  whether 
it  exists  in  the  form  of  a first  and  stable  cause 
of  things,  a fundamental  substance  which  under- 
lies all  change,  or  even  in  the  form  of  a plan  or 
purpose  which  nature  through  its  various  muta- 
tions is  striving  to  fulfil.  The  only  thing  which 
is  permanent  in  the  midst  of  change  is,  as 
Heraclitus  long  ago  said,  the  law  of  change  it- 
self. Stability  anywhere  else  is  mere  appear- 
ance, the  illusion  of  an  imperfect  human 
faculty.^ 

God  is  therefore  not  a creative  force  in  the 
sense  of  a permanent  personal  cause  who  by  the 
action  of  his  will  once  for  all  creates  things,  or 
continually  produces  them.  God  is  not  a sub- 
stance, and  his  creations  are  not  things. 
“ Everything,”  says  Bergson  in  Creative  Evolu- 

1 Still,  according  to  other  parts  of  Bergson’s  system, 
the  vicissitudes  which  any  phase  of  reality  undergoes 
are  not  so  drastic  as  to  result  in  its  complete  (or  even 
partial!)  destruction.  Our  flying  experiences  always 
embody  within  themselves  the  accumulated  history  of 
the  entire  past.  In  fact,  the  contrast  between  the  two 
ideas  of  radical  becoming  and  eternal  durability  is  so 
startling  in  Bergson’s  system  as  fairly  to  take  one’s 
breath  away.  Cf.  further  p.  82,  n.  1,  and  pp.  94-5. 


20 


Henri  Bergson 


tion,  “ is  obscure  in  the  idea  of  creation  if  we 
think  of  things  which  are  created  and  a thing 
which  creates,  as  we  habitually  do,  as  the  under- 
standing cannot  help  doing.  . . . But  things 
and  states  are  only  views,  taken  by  the  mind,  of 
becoming.  There  are  no  things,  but  only  ac- 
tions. . . . God  thus  defined  has  nothing  of  the 
already  made ; He  is  unceasing  life,  action,  free- 
dom. Creation,  so  conceived,  is  not  a mystery ; 
we  experience  it  in  ourselves  when  we  act 
freely.” 

We  have  encountered  in  this  passage  one  of 
the  most  characteristic  positions  in  Bergson’s 
philosophy.  The  deepest,  nay,  the  only,  real 
aspect  of  things  is  change.  But  the  intellect 
through  its  concepts  represents  reality  as  static. 
The  flux  of  reality  is  transmuted  into  things ; 
change  becomes  fixity ; nature  is  immobilised  and 
falsified.  Reality  as  it  is  has  nothing  in  com- 
mon with  reality  as  science  represents  it  to  us. 
For  reality  is  nothing  complete,  it  is  in  the  mak- 
ing ; it  is  not  perfection,  but  action ; not  status, 
but  life ; not  fixity,  but  freedom. 

How  comes  it,  then,  that  the  scientific  intel- 
lect has  always  treated  reality  as  a collection  of 
atoms,  objects,  classes,  in  short,  statically .P 

This  brings  us  to  a very  fundamental  point 
in  Bergson’s  theory  of  knowledge:  it  is  due,  he 
replies,  to  the  limitation  of  the  intellect,  which  is 
merely  an  annex  to  the  faculty  of  action.  The 


The  Apotheosis  of  Change  21 


function  of  the  intellect  is  to  preside  over  ac- 
tion, but  action  is  possible  only  when  phenomena 
are  treated  as  integral  and  stable.  Hence  it 
comes  to  pass,  as  Bergson  says  in  an  oft-quoted 
passage,  “ that  our  human  intellect  feels  at  home 
among  Inanimate  objects,  more  especially  among 
solids,  where  our  action  finds  its  fulcrum  and 
our  industry  its  tools ; that  our  concepts  have 
been  formed  on  the  model  of  solids ; that  our 
logic  is,  pre-eminently,  the  logic  of  solids ; that 
our  intellect  triumphs  in  geometry.” 

But  an  instrument  developed  merely  in  the 
interest  of  practical  action  is  powerless  to  deal 
with  reality  as  it  is.  The  intellectual  construc- 
tions of  science,  therefore,  have  no  ultimate  val- 
idity. Science  is  not  metaphysics. 


Ill 

PRIMORDIAL  EXPERIENCE  AND  ITS 
INTELLECTUAL  RECONSTRUCTION 


m 


PBJMOBJ)IAL.  EXPERIENCE  AND  ITS  INTELEECTEAL 
RECONSTRUCTION 

The  notion  of  Bergson  of  the  perfectly  con- 
tinuous character  of  what  is  real,  and  his  con- 
tention that  the  intellect  essentially  falsifies 
reality  by  casting  it  into  stereotyped,  atomic 
forms,  are  so  characteristic  of  Bergson’s  philo- 
sophy, and  so  thoroughly  violate  our  accus- 
tomed way  of  thinking,  which  trusts  the  In- 
tellect, and  sees  things  substantially,  that  we 
shall  do  well  to  attempt  at  this  point  some 
preliminary  exposition,  as  simple  and  impartial 
as  may  be,  of  the  fundamental  ideas  under  con- 
sideration. 

It  is  unquestionable  that  the  primordial  sense 
consciousness  of  the  young  infant  or  of  one  of 
the  lower  animal  forms  is  a structureless,  single- 
tissue alfair,  resembling  in  that  respect  the  jelly- 
like  body  of  an  animal  organism  at  a very  low 
stage  of  zoological  evolution.  It  is  “ a big, 
blooming,  buzzing  confusion,”  nowhere  showing 
those  cleavages,  lines  and  boundaries  which  give 
to  our  maturer  experience  so  much  structure 
25 


26 


Henri  Bergson 


and  relational  variety.  “ Boundaries,”  says 
James  in  his  posthumous  book,  Some  Problems 
of  Philosophy,  “ are  things  that  intervene : but 
here  [in  the  primordial,  perceptual  flux]  noth- 
ing intervenes  save  parts  of  the  perceptual  flux 
itself,  and  these  are  overflowed  by  what  they 
separate,  so  that  whatever  we  distinguish  and 
isolate  conceptually  is  found  perceptually  to 
telescope  and  compenetrate  and  diffuse  into  its 
neighbours.  The  cuts  we  make  are  purely 
ideal.” 

This  breaking  up  of  the  original  continuity 
is  due  to  the  selective  power  of  attention,  which 
isolates  this  or  that  aspect  or  detail,  and  to 
memory,  which  refuses  to  let  the  phase  once 
isolated  merge  again  with  other  parts  of  the 
mental  field.  James  describes  the  process  with 
characteristic  skill : “ Out  of  the  original  sen- 

sible muchness  attention  carves  out  objects  and 
identifies  them  forever  — in  the  sky  constella- 
tions, on  the  earth  beach,  sea,  cliff,  bushes,  grass. 
Out  of  time  we  cut  days  and  nights,  summers 
and  winters.  We  say  what  each  part  of  the 
sensible  continuum  is,  and  all  these  abstracted 
whats  are  concepts.  The  intellectual  life  of  man 
consists  almost  wholly  in  his  substitution  of  a 
conceptual  oz’der  for  the  perceptual  order  in 
which  his  experience  originally  comes.” 

It  is  thus  through  our  intellectual  analyses 
and  recombinations  that  the  objects,  classes,  lines 


Primordial  Experience 


27 


of  spatial,  temporal  and  dynamic  relationship, 
which  so  endlessly  divide  our  experience,  come 
about,  the  whole  taking  on  an  increasing  order 
and  organisation  with  the  progress  of  intellectual 
sophistication.  What  was  originally  homoge- 
neous thus  becomes  heterogeneous ; what  was 
telescoped  and  run  together  becomes  differenti- 
ated and  cut  off.  What  was  current  and  con- 
tinuous, Bergson  would  add,  becomes  immobile 
and  stereotyped!  For  relation  means  fixation. 
The  intellectual  identification  of  parts  or  phases 
of  the  flux  for  purposes  of  future  reference  or 
practical  control  means  their  arrest  and  perma- 
nent solidification. 

We  thus  see  the  fundamental  imperfection  of 
all  human  knowledge,  its  inadequacy  as  an  in- 
strument to  convey  to  us  the  truth  about  that 
which  is  real.  The  phases  of  reality  are  evanes- 
cent; our  ideas  or  concepts  referring  to  them 
are  motionless  and  eternal.  Reality  is  fluent; 
our  meanings  are  fixed  and  standardised.  Real- 
ity as  it  is  is  wild  and  on  the  wing ; reality  as  it 
exists  for  the  intellect  is  dead,  mounted  and 
scientifically  classified.  “ The  intellect,”  says 
Bertrand  Russell,  “ may  be  compared  to  a 
carver,  but  it  has  the  peculiarity  of  imagining 
that  the  chicken  always  was  the  separate  pieces 
into  which  the  carving-knife  divides  it.” 

Now  I suppose  that  the  fundamental  point 
at  issue  is  whether  reality  is  more  adequately 


28 


Henri  Bergson 


represented  in  the  bare  awareness  of  primordial 
sense  consciousness,  in  the  undifferentiated,  un- 
analysed mass  which  the  earliest  infant  and  ani- 
mal experience  presents,  or  whether,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  get  an  ever  truer  account  of 
reality  through  the  employment  of  the  analytical 
and  synthetic  powers  of  intelligence  which  in  our 
later  maturity  we  so  much  use,  and  which  we 
call  by  the  proud  name  of  reflection  or  reason. 
We  confront  here  the  rather  startling  question 
whether  science  really  brings  us  nearer  to  the 
truth  as  it  refines  its  methods  and  deepens  its 
erudition,  or  whether  the  searcher  after  truth 
must  not  become  as  a child  again,  if  he  would 
enter  the  kingdom  of  incorruptible  wisdom. 

But  we  must  not  prejudice  the  question  by  the 
use  of  question-begging  epithets.  Let  us  seek, 
rather,  to  brighten  Bergson’s  distinctions  by  an 
actual  investigation  of  the  methods  and  results 
of  science  in  the  two  great  departments  of  in- 
tellectual endeavour,  the  mental  and  the  phys- 
ical. 


IV 

THE  DISMEMBERMENT  OF  THE  SOUL 


IV 


THE  DISMEMBEEMENT  OF  THE  SOTJE 

Peehaps  the  best  way  to  illustrate  the  re- 
construction of  reality  by  the  scientific  intellect 
is  to  begin  with  a type  of  reality  to  which  we 
have  the  most  complete  and  direct  access,  our 
own  inner  life  of  thought,  feeling  and  will,  the 
subject-matter  of  psychology.  The  various 
phases  of  our  inner  life  are  notoriously  fluctu- 
ating. One  of  the  most  striking  aspects  of 
mental  life  is  the  continuous  transition  within 
it,  its  uninterrupted  flow,  in  which  occur  no 
breaks,  gaps  or  cleavages.  It  might  be  repre- 
sented, says  Bergson  in  the  Introduction  a la 
Metaphysique,  by  a spectrum  of  innumerable 
colours  each  of  which  shades  off  by  insensible 
gradations  into  another.  Or  it  might  be  illus- 
trated by  an  infinitely  elastic  piece  of  rubber 
drawn  together  intO’  a mathematical  point  which 
is  then  drawn  out  so  as  to  generate  a line  which 
is  being  indefinitely  prolonged.  Let  us  further 
abstract  completely  from  the  time  idea  asso- 
ciated with  the  process  of  prolongation;  also 
31 


32 


Henri  Bergson 


from  the  space  through  which  the  rubber  is 
drawn.  Let  us,  in  short,  try  to  realise  pure 
movement,  without  admixture  of  artificial  tem- 
poral or  spatial  elements:  we  then  get  a fair 
idea  of  the  self  in  its  most  fundamental  aspect, 
the  aspect  of  pure  duration. 

Still,  neither  illustration  is  quite  adequate  to 
reveal  the  intimate  nature  of  the  inner  life. 
The  spectrum,  for  example,  is  an  already  com- 
pleted thing,  while  the  self  is  an  enduring,  grow- 
ing, interminable  process.  Besides,  the  colours 
in  the  spectrum  lie  side  by  side,  occupy  space. 
But  the  inner  life  is  completely  non-spatial. 
The  other  illustration  of  the  infinitely  elastic 
piece  of  rubber  which  is  drawn  out  indefinitely 
does  indeed  illustrate  somewhat  better  non-spa- 
tial  duration,  but  the  duration  is  a featureless 
duration,  lacking  the  qualitative  wealth,  the 
richness  of  colour,  characteristic  of  the  life  of 
the  mind.  The  inner  life  combines  continuous 
duration,  qualitative  diversity  and  unity  of  di- 
rection. No  illustration  can  adequately  repre- 
sent it.  Concrete  duration,  which  is  the  very 
essence  of  reality  and  life,  cannot  be  repre- 
sented: it  can  only  be  lived.^ 

1 It  would  be  well-nigh  impossible  to  exaggerate  the 
importance  of  the  concept  (!)  of  “ pure  duration  ” for 
the  whole  of  Bergson’s  system.  The  sample  of  reality 
obtained  through  the  intuition  of  the  unbroken  move- 
ment of  our  real  inner  life,  “ le  moi  profond,”  is  for 
Bergson  a true  sample  of  reality  as  a whole,  of  the  un- 


Dismemeermeistt  of  the  Soul  33 


It  is  only  another  way  of  stating  the  idea  of 
the  concreteness  and  continuity  of  our  psychical 
life  when  we  say  that  the  intimate  character  of 
any  mental  process  or  experience  is  determined 
through  its  organic  connection  with  the  person- 
ality as  a whole,  through  the  fact,  as  James  ex- 
presses it,  that  each  mental  experience  is  a part 
of  a personal  consciousness.  “ It  seems,”  says 
James,  “ as  if  the  elementary  psychic  fact  were 
not  thought,  or  that  thought,  but  my  thought, 
every  thought  being  owned.  The  universal  con- 
scious fact  is  not,  feelings  and  thoughts  exist, 

divided  or  concrete  (as  opposed  to  mathematical)  time 
which  constitutes  the  very  essence  of  being.  Bergson’s 
own  estimate  of  the  importance  of  this  doctrine  has  been 
indicated  in  a letter  to  an  American  correspondent  of 
the  year  1911.  “I  daily  discover  (he  wrote)  how  diffi- 
cult it  is  to  bring  people’s  minds  to  the  perception  of 
real  duration  and  to  make  them  see  it  as  it  is  — that  is 
to  say,  as  indivisible  though  moving  (or  rather  indivisi- 
ble because  moving).  I have  scarcely  done  anything  else 
in  all  that  I have  written  except  call  attention  to  this; 
yet  I am  sure  that  I have  not  succeeded,  for  I observe 
that  people  study  me  and  criticise  me  on  many  points 
rather  than  this  one,  which  is  the  only  essential  one,  and 
to  which  all  other  points  should  be  attached,  if  one  does 
not  wish  to  run  the  risk  of  completely  misunderstanding 
them.  To  any  one  who  has  gained  a clear  consciousness 
of  this  concrete  duration,  and  who  above  all  has  learned 
to  place  himself  again  in  it  and  habitually  live  in  it, 
philosophy  and  reality  itself  take  on  a wholly  new  as- 
pect. Many  problems  disappear,  and  reality  acquires 
so  much  intensity  as  to  become  luminous  of  itself,  with- 
out having  so  great  need  of  the  light  which  plulosophers 
profess  to  bring  to  it.” 


34 


Henri  Bergson 


but  I think  and  I feel.”  Conscious  states,  that 
is,  do  not  exist  as  isolated  or  sundered  elements : 
the  whole  history  of  the  individual,  Bergson 
teaches,  is  somehow  recapitulated  and  epit- 
omised by  them,  the  personality  is  present  in 
its  entirety  in  each  of  them. 

But  how  does  scientific  psychology  proceed  in 
dealing  with  an  item  of  experience  It  begins 
by  isolating  the  experience,  lifting  it  out  of  its 
concrete  connections  with  the  living  personality, 
and  thus  strips  it  of  everything  about  it  which 
is  unique  and  distinctive.  The  uniqueness  of 
the  psychical  process  cannot  reappear  in  the 
concepts  of  psychology  for  the  simple  reason 
that  it  is  the  very  nature  of  the  concept  to  re- 
present only  the  general,  the  average,  the  recur- 
ring feature,  not  the  individual  or  the  unique. 

If  the  psychologist  is  dealing  with  inclination, 
for  example,  he  is  obliged  to  neglect  those  inex- 
pressible shades  and  nuances  which  distinguish 
my  inclination,  simply  because  it  is  mine,  from 
that  of  any  one  else  in  the  world.  The  psy- 
chologist’s activity,  to  use  an  illustration  of 
Bergson’s,  is  very  much  like  that  of  an  artist 
who  sketches,  say,  one  of  the  towers  of  Notre 
Dame.  The  tower  is  of  course  an  inseparable 
part  of  the  cathedral  as  a whole,  the  cathedral 
has  a certain  setting  within  its  surroundings, 
these  are  a part  of  the  city  of  Paris,  and  so  on. 
The  tower  itself,  when  seen  in  its  total  context. 


Dismemberment  of  the  Soul  35 


is  a thing  of  beauty:  the  sketch  gives  back  a 
bloodless,  fleshless  skeleton,  a mere  shadow  of 
the  reality. 

The  case  would  not  be  so  hopeless  if  psycho- 
logy could  dip  into  the  mental  stream  and  ex- 
hibit a true  sample  of  psychic  experience,  no 
matter  how  small.  But  psychology,  and  every 
other  science,  for  that  matter,  is  perfectly  help- 
less in  this  regard.  No  one,  for  example,  could 
possibly  convey  to  another  an  experience  such  as 
a colour,  or  an  emotion,  or  an  aspiration,  by 
describing  these  experiences  in  the  abstract 
terms  of  psychology,  if  the  person  had  never 
experienced  colours,  emotions  or  aspirations  for 
himself.  The  distinction  here  is  the  same  as 
that  which  James  makes  between  “ acquaintance 
with  ” and  “ knowledge  about.”  A person  born 
blind  might  know  as  much  about  colours  as 
Helmholtz  himself,  and  still  not  know  what  col- 
our was,  in  the  sense  of  having  an  actual  ac- 
quaintance with  colour.  And  so  of  mental 
experiences  generally. 

Psychology,  indeed,  like  every  other  science, 
does  not  proceed  by  partition,  but  by  analysis. 
The  distinction  between  partition  and  analysis, 
between  a part  and  an  element,  Bergson  illus- 
trates in  a very  clever  way.  A child  can  take 
the  parts  of  pasteboard  animals,  in  the  game  of 
“ sliced  animals,”  or  the  parts  of  a map,  and 
easily  reconstruct  the  animals  or  the  map.  But 


36 


HeNEI  BERGSOlSr 


no  one  could  take  the  letters  of,  say,  Milton’s 
Lycidas,  if  they  were  all  before  him  in  the  form 
of  printer’s  pie,  and  reconstruct  that  master- 
piece if  he  had  no  previous  knowledge  of  it. 
The  reason,  of  course,  is  that  the  letters  are  not 
parts  of  the  poem,  but  mere  elements,  artificial 
symbols.  They  may  signify  or  represent  real- 
ity, but  they  are  not  it,  nor  any  part  of  it. 


THE  DISMEMBERMENT  OF  THE  SOUL 
(Continued) 


V 


THE  DISMEMBEEMENT  OF  THE  SOUL  (CONTINUED) 

The  question  is  often  asked  to  what  extent 
Bergson  is  original,  and  to  what  extent  he  gives 
us  a restatement,  merely,  of  views  which  have 
been  held,  in  some  foim  or  other,  by  previous 
thinkers  in  the  history  of  ideas.  The  question 
cannot,  of  course,  be  answered  categorically,  for 
the  reason  that  no  one  knows  the  complete  his- 
tory of  scientific  and  philosophical  literature,  so 
as  to  be  able  to  say  what  in  Bergson  is  entirely 
new,  and  what  is  second  hand.  Besides,  the 
question  could  not  easily  be  answered  unless  one 
knew  to  what  extent  Bergson  himself  was  ac- 
quainted with  all  that  has  been  said  on  the  prob- 
lems of  life  and  of  reality.  That  he  is  a man  of 
many-sided  learning  is  without  question.  But 
to  master  the  whole  of  philosophical  literature 
is  to-day,  at  least,  quite  beyond  human  power. 

One  thing,  however,  is  perfectly  certain. 
Bergson  is  never  content  merely  to  repeat  other 
men’s  opinions  after  them : he  must  test  them  for 
himself,  and  his  critical  powers  are  quite  as  no- 
table as  is  his  erudition.  He  tears  through  all 
39 


40 


Henri  Bergson 


our  historical  distinctions,  he  ignores  the  stand- 
points of  the  schools,  and  he  does  so  with  an 
ease  and  an  appearance  of  quiet  confidence  which 
quite  disarms  hostile  opposition.  Idealism  and 
materialism,  mechanism  and  teleology,  intellec- 
tualism  and  pragmatism,  fate  and  freedom : none 
of  these  time-honoured  distinctions  quite  meets 
his  needs.  Of  mechanism  and  purpose,  for  ex- 
ample, he  says  in  a picturesque  passage  in  his 
Creative  Evolution:  “ We  shall  try  to  fit  to 

the  process  of  evolution  the  two  ready-made 
garments  of  mechanism  and  teleology ; we  shall 
show  that  they  do  not  fit,  neither  the  one  nor 
the  other,  but  that  one  of  them  might  be  recut 
and  resewn,  and  in  this  form  fit  less  badly  than 
the  other.” 

A case  in  point  is  the  standing  controversy 
between  the  rationalists  and  the  empiricists  (we 
should  perhaps  say  the  substantialists  and  the 
phenomenalists)  in  psychology,  the  former  as- 
serting the  soul  to  be  a self-identical,  changeless 
entity,  a sort  of  substance,  the  latter  insisting 
that  it  is  nothing  but  a collection  of  psychical 
states  or  processes. 

The  whole  controversy  is  based  upon  the  psy- 
chological abstractionism  certain  phases  of 
which  we  discussed  in  the  last  section.  Both 
points  of  view  are  equally  wrong  because  they  in- 
tellectualise  the  mental  life,  i.  e.,  translate  it 
into  abstract  scientific  elements,  and  so  reduce 


Dismemberment  of  the  Soul  41 


it  to  a schema,  a bloodless,  lifeless  entity,  or 
collection  of  entities,  instead  of  the  living,  mov- 
ing, creative  thing  that  it  is.  The  very  es- 
sence of  the  psychical  life  is  duration  (dui’ee)  a 
perfect  continuity  in  which  there  are  no  inter- 
ruptions, chasms  or  cleavages.  In  order  for 
consciousness  to  continue,  we  well  know,  it  must 
change,  develop  — create  itself  ever  anew. 

But  we  already  know  the  idiosyncrasy  of  the 
scientific  intellect ; it  always  takes  the  fluid  pro- 
cess and  immobilises  it  — it  never  touches 
reality  but  to  transform  it.  For  the  uninter- 
rupted process  of  the  inner  life  the  rationalist 
substitutes  an  unchanging  entity,  the  “ soul,” 
the  empiricist  a collection  of  unchanging  enti- 
ties, in  the  shape  of  sensations,  images,  percep- 
tions, ideas,  etc.,  thus  making  the  life  of  the 
mind  consist  in  the  mechanical  interplay  of 
these  imaginary  static  entities,  still-states  or 
“ states,”  which  are  in  reality  nothing  more 
than  verbal  abstractions  which  have  been 
analysed  out  of  the  living  flow  of  the  mind,  the 
petrified  symbols  of  mental  becoming. 

Analytic  psychology  cannot  of  course  do 
otherwise  than  deny  the  existence  of  the  soul. 
It  is  the  very  business  of  analysis  to  break  up  the 
concrete  whole  into  elements  or  states.  After 
psychology  has  analysed  the  concrete  personal- 
ity into  so  many  elements  or  states  it  cannot,  of 
course,  expect  to  find  it  again.  The  word  self 


42 


Henri  Bergson 


or  soul,  when  applied  to  the  sum  total  of  these 
states,  has  no  more  meaning  than  the  word 
Paris  which  the  artist  affixes  to  his  various 
Parisian  sketches  or  scenes. 

Philosophical  empiricism,  therefore,  origi- 
nates in  a misunderstanding  of  the  very  nature 
and  significance  of  scientific  analysis:  its  fun- 
damental error  consists  in  mistaking  the  last 
products  of  its  analysis  for  ultimate  reality. 
But  it  is  seeking  the  living  among  the  dead:  the 
soul  cannot  be  found  somewhere  among  its  dis- 
membered parts,  or,  rather,  among  its  symbolic 
substitutes.  The  reality  has  been  left  far  be- 
hind. 

The  rationalist  is  of  course  equally  in  error. 
Taking  his  start  from  the  results  of  psycholog- 
ical analysis,  he  makes  it  his  task  to  bring  the 
disjecta  membra  of  psychology  together  again. 
Armed  with  the  same  methods  and  instruments 
of  search  as  empirical  psychology,  he  starts  out 
in  quest  of  the  soul,  hoping  to  find  it  somewhere 
amid  the  contents  of  the  mind,  as  named  and 
described  by  psychology.  Since,  however,  all 
the  discoverable  contents  of  the  mind  have  al- 
ready been  appropriated  by  psychology,  there 
is  nothing  left  for  rationalism  to  do  but  to  as- 
sert that  the  essence  of  the  soul  is  pure  form,  a 
form  free  from  all  positive  determination.  The 
self  is  thus  attenuated  to  a point  where  it  loses 
all  significance  and  character.  It  could  belong 


Dismemberment  of  the  Soul  43 

to  Peter  or  Paul  indifferently,  without  any  one 
being  the  wiser,  like  an  ill-fitting  garment  which 
can  be  worn  by  any  number  of  persons  for  the 
simple  reason  that  it  fits  no  one  of  them. 

Empiricism,  seeking  the  self  under  the  guise 
of  some  specific  process,  ends  by  denying  its  ex- 
istence altogether ; rationalism,  seeking  the  self 
in  the  interstitial  spaces,  so  to  speak,  which  sepa- 
rate the  mental  states,  fails  to  find  it  also.  Un- 
able, however,  to  deny  the  undoubted  integrity 
of  the  mental  life,  rationalism  manufactures  a 
self  outrightly,  and  ascribes  to  it  the  synthetic 
function  of  bringing  together  again  the  sun- 
dered elements  of  psychology. 

But,  as  Hegel  profoundly  said.  Das  Wahre  ist 
das  Ganze,  the  truth  lies  in  the  whole.  An  em- 
piricism which  is  truly  genuine,  therefore,  will 
have  nothing  in  common  with  either  traditional 
empiricismi  or  traditional  rationalism.  It  will 
employ  neither  analysis  nor  synthesis,  but  intui- 
tion. It  will  seek  to  come  upon  the  life  of  the 
soul  in  its  first  intention,  to  follow  it  through 
its  supple  movements  and  its  inward  sinuosities. 
Such  a method,  an  intuition  of  the  soul  by  the 
soul,  would  give  us  a true  metaphysic  of  the  soul, 
instead  of  a heap  of  bare  abstractions,  the  con- 
ceptual symbols,  the  empty  shells  of  reality. 


VI 

THE  EXTERNAL  WORLD  AND  THE 
WORLD  OF  SCIENCE 


VI 


THE  EXTERNAL  WORLD  AND  THE  WORU)  OF 
SCIENCE 

We  have  so  far  dealt  with  Bergson’s  descrip- 
tion and  criticism  of  the  intellectualistic  ac- 
count of  the  inner  life  as  given  by  the  science  of 
psychology.  We  come  now  to  a more  difficult 
part  of  our  task,  the  interpretation  of  Berg- 
son’s view  of  the  true  nature  of  the  external 
world.  Is  the  account  which  science  gives  of 
that  also  symbolic  and  imperfect,  and,  if  so,  do 
we  have  any  access  to  physical  nature  which  is 
more  trustworthy  and  penetrating  than  the 
method  used  by  physical  science? 

The  case  against  a static  view  of  things,  such 
as  science,  according  to  Bergson,  always  gives, 
seems  to  be  more  difficult  to  establish  in  the 
realm  of  matter,  at  least  to  the  satisfaction  of 
common  sense,  than  in  the  realm  of  the  mind. 
Common  sense  is  rather  ready  to  admit,  if  it  can 
be  brought  to  introspect  carefully,  that  abso- 
lutely constant  features  in  the  life  of  the  soul  are 
difficult  to  identify.  But  when  we  come  to  the 
world  of  matter  the  case  seems  to  be  different. 

47 


48 


Henri  Bergson 


For  do  we  not  distinguish  between  the  physical 
sciences  and  psychology  by  asserting  that  the 
former  deal  with  things,  objects  with  compara- 
tively permanent  spatial  delineations,  while  the 
subject  matter  of  psychology  is  exclusively 
processes? 

Bergson  does  indeed  find  it  hard  to  break  with 
the  older  dualism  of  the  Cartesian  type  which 
made  a clean-cut  distinction  between  the  ma- 
terial and  the  mental,  and  the  two  are  often 
thrown  into  rather  sharp  opposition,  as  we  shall 
see  more  fully  later,  when  we  come  to  the  dis- 
cussion of  Bergson’s  view  of  the  mechanism  of 
evolution.  Still,  common  sense  and  science  do 
recognise  change  in  nature,  although  this  change 
is  often  so  gradual  as  to  be  imperceptible.  The 
tooth  of  time,  all  admit,  will  destroy  the  most 
enduring  monuments  of  nature  and  of  human 
art  if  only  the  interval  taken  is  sufficiently  long. 

Science,  however,  after  all  seems  to  treat 
change  as  if  it  were  something  adventitious, 
something  imposed  upon  nature  from  without. 
Change,  for  example,  is  often  said  to  consist  in 
a mere  redistribution  of  elements  which  are  in 
themselves  unchangeable.  Rest,  inertia,  is 
treated  as  if  it  were  the  native  property  of  mat- 
ter, and  motion  as  if  it  were  a mere  function  of 
rest.  The  problem  of  the  primacy  of  rest  or 
motion,  permanence  or  change,  is  indeed  a very 
ancient  one,  and  has  been  recognised  and  dis- 


The  External  World  49 

cussed  throughout  the  whole  history  of  philo- 
sophy. 

Bergson’s  point  of  view  here,  too,  is  that  of 
radical  evolutionism.  The  bottom  property  of 
things  is  duration:  reality  is  a living  spring  or 
bound.  The  static  view  of  things  which  science 
gives  us  is  due  to  its  taking  momentary  “ views  ” 
of  reality,  snap  shots,  as  it  were,  which  the  in- 
tellect takes  of  reality  as  it  passes.  Each  snap 
shot  taken  of  a rapidly  moving  object  repre- 
sents the  object  as  stationary.  But  no  matter 
how  many  such  rests  we  add  together,  their  sum 
is  never  a movement,  just  as  a series  of  short, 
straight  lines,  placed  end  to  end,  never  gives  us 
a true  curve.  Real  time,  then,  or  duration, 
which  is  fluent  and  continuous,  is  broken  up  by 
science  into  a discrete  series  of  static  moments. 
Similarly,  motion,  equally  fluent  and  continuous, 
is  represented  by  the  intellect  as  a simultaneity 
of  a static  series  of  moments  of  time  with  an 
equally  static  series  of  points  in  space,  much 
as  a railroad  time  table  does  not  show  the 
movements  of  trains,  but  only  the  station  stops. 
At  such  a time  the  train  is  at  such  a place. 

The  failure  to  apprehend  the  true  continuity 
of  motion  and  change  has  given  rise  to  the  con- 
tradictions the  impotent  grappling  with  which 
makes  the  history  of  philosophy  seem  so  much 
like  a long  drawn  out  and  unprofitable  contest 
of  words.  Zeno,  using  the  weapons  of  the  in- 


50 


Henri  Bergson 


tellectualist,  proved  that  a “ flying  ” arrow  can' 
not  really  move,  because  it  must  at  any  one 
moment  be  at  a given  point  and  at  no  other. 
The  solution  of  this  ancient  puzzle  is  that  the 
arrow  never  is  at  any  point  of  its  course,  be- 
cause it  doesn’t  stop.  Its  movement  is  not  a 
sum  of  rests : it  is  absolutely  indecomposable. 

In  fact,  it  is  not  motion  and  change  in  nature 
which  have  to  be  explained,  but  their  opposite, 
rest.  Given  motion,  you  can  explain  rest  read- 
ily enough  in  terms  of  movement.  But  if  you 
start  with  absolute  rest  you  can  never  get  to 
motion.  What  we  call  rest  in  nature,  in  fact,  is 
a derived  and  illusory  feature:  it  is  merely  due 
to  the  relation  among  movements.  All  the  ob- 
jects in  this  room  seem  to  be  at  rest;  as  a matter 
of  fact,  they  are  moving  through  space  with  a 
breathless  velocity.  The  various  movements 
are  not  perceptible,  however,  because  they  have 
the  same  rate  and  rhythm.  “ It  is  not  enough,” 
Bergson  recently  said  in  a lecture  delivered  at 
the  University  of  London,  “ it  is  not  enough  to 
say  that  everything  changes  and  moves  ; we  must 
believe  it.  Let  us  assume  that  everything 
changes  and  moves,  what  will  result  from  that 
proposition  .P  The  first  result  will  be  that  im- 
mobility is  a thing  more  complicated  than  move- 
ment. We  like  to  say  that  immobility  is  a real- 
ity, as  movement  is  also.  We  start  from 
immobility,  but  if  we  really  take  seriously  the 


The  External  World 


51 


proposition  that  everything  is  in  movement,  that 
everything  changes,  then  there  is  no  immobility. 
What  we  call  immobility  is  a composite  — a re- 
lation between  movements.  This  is  seen  from 
what  happens  if  we  are  in  a train  while  another 
train  is  moving  in  the  same  direction  beside  ours 
and  at  the  same  speed.  We  say  that  the  second 
train  is  motionless,  and  the  people  in  that  train 
say  that  ours  is  motionless.  Similarly,  immo- 
bility is  a relation  between  two  or  more  things. 
Immobility  is  a thing  more  complex  than  move- 
ment — it  consists  of  at  least  two  movements.” 

The  same  thing,  Bergson  adds,  can  be  said  of 
the  “ state  ” of  things  and  of  change.  “ What 
we  call  a state  is  the  appearance  which  a change 
assumes  in  the  eyes  of  a being  who  himself 
changes  according  to  an  identical  or  analogous 
rhythm.” 

The  sum  is  that  the  native  stuff  of  things 
overflows  all  our  scientific  descriptions  of  it : life 
is  vastly  richer  than  knowledge,  and  reality  than 
intellect.  Our  conceptual  constructions  do  not 
reproduce  or  duplicate  reality,  they  are  simply 
so  many  Hilfsmittel,  convenient  aids  to  action, 
but  without  metaphysical  significance.  The  in- 
tellect’s concepts  are  practical,  not  speculative, 
in  their  significance. 

Bergson  is  a master  of  metaphor  and  of  con- 
crete illustration,  a useful  but  dangerous  weapon 
in  the  hands  of  the  philosopher,  when  it  is  not 


52 


Henri  Bergson 


used  circumspectly.  But  weapon-wielding  is  not 
an  activity  favourable  to  philosophic  calm,  and 
weapon-wielders  have  never  been  noted  for 
the  delicate  quality  of  their  artistry.  The 
reader  should  be  warned,  therefore,  against  tak- 
ing Bergson’s  illustrations  as  anything  more 
than  they  are  meant  to  be,  suggestions  and  il- 
lustrations of  the  truth,  rather  than  complete 
expositions  of  it.  It  would  clearly  be  unjust 
to  Bergson  to  try  to  make  his  illustrations 
“ walk  on  all  fours,”  to  extend  them  beyond  a 
point  where  they  cease  to  illustrate. 

The  intellect,  he  suggests  somewhere  in  his 
Introduction  a la  Metaphysique,  may  be  likened 
to  a prism  through  which  white  light  is  passed. 
Just  as  the  white  light  is  decomposed  into  the 
various  colours  of  the  spectrum,  so  reality  is 
always  shattered  by  being  passed  through  the 
intellect.  There  is  an  important  point,  how- 
ever, upon  which  Bergson  always  insists:  you 
can  take  reality  and  analyse  it  into  elements,  but 
you  can  by  no  means  reconstruct  reality  out 
of  the  elements  which  are  the  product  of  your 
analysis,  in  the  way  you  can  recompose  the  col- 
ours of  the  spectrum  and  get  white  light  again. 
Analysis,  it  will  be  remembered,  gives  us  only 
elements,  never  parts.  Science  does  not  proceed 
by  partition,  but  by  reconstruction. 

Elsewhere  he  uses  another  illustration  to  make 


The  External  World 

clear  the  merely  representative  character  of  sci- 
entific symbolism,  the  fact  that  the  concepts  of 
the  intellect  are  mere  surrogates  of  reality, 
rather  than  samples  of  it.  Reality,  he  says,  is 
like  a gold  coin  for  which  one  has  received 
change  in  baser  metal.  The  gold  coin  is  homo- 
geneous and  intrinsically  precious.  Its  value 
(let  us  say)  is  the  value  actually  represented 
by  the  gold  contained  in  it.  But  the  baser  coins 
are  merely  so  many  counters ; they  serve  as  a 
medium  of  exchange,  and  as  such  they  are  valu- 
able. But  aside  from  this  practical  use  to  which 
they  are  put,  they  have  no  interest  for  us  what- 
soever. Like  the  counters  of  science,  they  have 
no  intrinsic  value.  They  are  intrinsically  un- 
real. 

This,  in  brief  outline,  constitutes  the  attack 
upon  the  intellect  with  which  Bergson  is  often 
charged.  And  the  result  is  indeed  hardly  calcu- 
lated to  support  the  proud  claims  often  made 
for  scientific  knowledge.  “ Instead  of  intellec- 
tual knowledge  being  the  profounder,”  James 
says,  interpreting  Bergson,  “ he  calls  it  the  more 
superficial.  Instead  of  being  the  only  adequate 
knowledge,  it  is  grossly  inadequate,  and  its  only 
superiority  is  the  practical  one  of  enabling  us  to 
make  short  cuts  through  experience  and  thereby 
to  save  time.  Dive  back  into  the  flux  itself, 
then,  Bergson  tells  us,  if  you  wish  to  Tcnow  real- 


54 


Henri  Bergson 


ity,  that  flux  which  Platonism,  in  its  strange 
belief  that  only  the  immutable  is  excellent,  has 
always  spurned;  turn  your  face  towards  sensa- 
tion, that  flesh-bound  thing  which  rationalism 
has  always  loaded  with  abuse.” 


VII 

SOME  FURTHER  ILLUSTRATIONS  OF 
SCIENTIFIC  RECONSTRUCTION 


I 


■ 

'•■i 


VII 


SOME  FURTHER  ILLUSTRATIONS  OF  SCIENTIFIC 
RECONSTRUCTION 

We  have  dealt  thus  at  length  with  Bergson’s 
criticism  of  scientific  symbolism  because  many 
of  his  other  doctrines,  as  will  be  seen  more  fully 
later,  are  thoroughly  affected  by  his  fundamen- 
tal view  of  the  nature  of  science,  and  the  ultimate 
validity  of  its  categories  and  formulas.  Many 
of  the  current  philosophical  views  of  the  world 
and  of  life,  such  as  the  existence  of  mechanical 
causation,  the  nature  and  method  of  evolution, 
the  freedom  of  the  will,  and  the  place  of  life  and 
mind  in  reality,  depend  upon  certain  presupposi- 
tions and  theories  of  science  which  are  generally 
taken  as  ultimate  truth,  at  least  until  they  are 
superseded  by  other  data  of  a similar  kind. 
But  suppose  these  presuppositions  and  theories 
turn  out  to  be  merely  a vast  system  of  symbols 
which  have  a high  value  for  the  purposes  of 
controlling  nature,  but  have  otherwise  no  specu- 
lative or  metaphysical  validity.?  This  is  pre- 
cisely what  Bergson  maintains. 

It  is  only  fair  to  Bergson  to  say  that  the 
57 


58 


Henri  Bergson 


criticism  of  scientific  concepts  and  formulas 
which  is  such  a striking  feature  of  his  philoso- 
phy is  not  by  any  means  original  with  him,  but 
that  discussions  of  a similar  sort  have  been  car- 
ried on  in  various  quarters  for  more  than  a gen- 
eration, not  to  mention  the  profound  reaction 
to  intellectualism  represented  by  the  philo- 
sophies of  Jacobi,  Schelling  and  their  fellow 
romanticists  near  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 

Much,  for  instance,  has  lately  been  said  about 
the  merely  “ abstract  ” or  “ hypothetical  ” char- 
acter of  scientific  laws,  the  fact,  that  is,  that 
these  laws,  often  said  to  be  exact,  are  not  actu- 
ally exemplified  in  nature,  but  hold  only  when 
they  are  taken  abstractly,  i.  e.,  when  they  oper- 
ate, not  under  actual,  but  under  hypothetical 
conditions,  conditions  which  are  nowhere  real- 
ised. An  illustration  or  two  will  make  this  clear. 
We  shall  do  well  to  take  our  illustrations  from 
the  most  exact  sciences  which  we  have,  mathe- 
matics and  mechanics. 

The  three  angles  of  a triangle  are  said  to 
equal  two  right  angles,  but  this  is  true  only  of  an 
abstract  or  imaginary  triangle,  and  applies  to 
no  case  of  a triangle  found  in  nature.  Sir  Oli- 
ver Lodge  has  recently  called  attention  to  the 
difference  between  such  an  abstract  triangle,  a 
purely  mathematical  object,  and  the  concrete 
one  drawn,  for  example,  on  the  surface  of  a calm 


The  External  World 


59 


sheet  of  water.  The  surface  here,  though  per- 
haps as  flat  as  ever  found  in  nature,  is  not  flat, 
but  is  part  of  a sphere,  and  the  proposition  does 
not  hold. 

Or  take  another  instance.  The  proposition 
that  one  and  one  make  two  is,  if  these  numbers 
are  taken  in  the  abstract,  quite  beyond  con- 
troversy. But  are  we  so  sure  that  one  and  one 
make  two  when  we  are  dealing,  not  with  abstract 
numbers,  but  with  concrete  objects.^  “ It  is  not 
true,”  Lodge  reminds  us,  “ for  two  globules  of 
mercury,  for  instance,  nor  for  a couple  of  col- 
liding stars ; not  true  for  a pint  of  water,  added 
to  a pint  of  oil  of  vitriol,  not  for  nitric  oxide 
added  to  oxygen,  nor  for  the  ingredients  of  an 
explosive  mixture ; not  necessarily  true,  either, 
for  snakes  in  a cage,  or  for  capital  invested  in  a 
business  concern,  flourishing  or  otherwise;  nor 
is  it  true,  save  in  a temporary  manner,  for  a 
couple  of  trout  added  to  a pond.  Life  can  ridi- 
cule arithmetic.” 

A still  more  enlightening  illustration,  perhaps, 
is  that  of  the  law  of  the  lever,  taken  from  me- 
chanics. This  law  states  that  equilibrium  is 
maintained  when  the  weights  at  each  side  of  the 
fulcrum  are  equal.  But  in  order  for  this  law  to 
hold,  a number  of  conditions  must  be  fulfilled. 
The  lever  must  be  of  homogeneous  structure  and 
absolutely  rigid;  the  fulcrum  must  be  a mathe- 
matical point,  so  as  to  exclude  the  possibility  of 


60 


Henri  Bergson 


friction ; the  weights  must  be  of  such  a nature  as 
not  to  affect  the  lever  by  anything  except  their 
actual  weight,  etc.  But,  evidently,  these  condi- 
tions are  neither  separately  nor  collectively  real- 
ised in  any  actual  case  of  a lever  in  operation. 
The  law  of  the  lever,  again,  holds  only  in  the 
abstract,  that  is,  under  purely  hypothetical  con- 
ditions. 

What  applies  in  the  above  instances  applies 
to  all  laws  of  nature  whatsoever.  The  only 
cases  in  which  they  are  really  exact  are  the  cases 
in  which  they  are  abstractly  or  hypothetically 
stated.  In  nature  they  are  never  more  than 
roughly  approximated. 

The  reader  acquainted  with  modern  philoso- 
phical literature  and  with  the  literature  on  the 
methods  of  science  will  have  recognised  motives 
in  the  foregoing  account  of  Bergson  which  ap- 
pear also  in  a large  number  of  thinkers  belong- 
ing to  every  type  of  scientific  and  philosophical 
persuasion.  Hegel  himself,  that  most  abused  of 
“ intellectualists,”  had  an  almost  immodest  share 
in  the  criticism  of  concepts,  a fact  seldom  sensed 
by  professional  anti-Hegelians  who,  it  appears, 
often  expend  more  energy  hating  Hegel  than 
reading  him.  The  most  important  names  among 
more  recent  writers  are  those  of  Laas,  Dilthey, 
Vaihinger,  Mach,  Marchesini,  Lipps,  Hertz,  Ost- 
wald,  Poincare,  F.  Klein,  and  Bertrand  Russell, 
but  there  is  a score  of  others.  An  extensive  ac- 


The  External  World 


61 


count  of  the  literature,  together  with  a compre- 
hensive discussion  of  the  whole  subject,  will  be 
found  in  the  great  work  of  Vaihinger,  recently 
published.  Die  Philosophie  des  Als  Ob,  The  Phi- 
losophy of  the  Fictitious,  to  which  the  German- 
reading  student  may  go  if  he  wishes  to  follow 
the  subject  further. 

That  psychologists,  at  least,  labour  under  no 
misapprehensions  as  to  the  ultimate  significance 
of  psychological  concepts  is  illustrated  by  the 
following  vigorous  passage,  taken  from  Miin- 
sterberg’s  Psychology  and  Life,  which  is  typical 
of  the  views,  expressed  or  understood,  of  a large 
number  of  leading  psychologists : 

“ Natural  science  considers  the  world  as  a 
mechanism,  and  for  that  purpose  transforms  the 
reality  in  a most  complicated  and  ingenious  way. 
It  puts  in  the  place  of  the  perceivable  objects 
unperceivable  atoms  which  are  merely  products 
of  mathematical  construction,  quite  unlike  any 
known  thing.  . . . There  is,  indeed,  no  physical 
object  in  the  world  which  science  ought  not  to 
transmute  into  atoms,  but  no  atom  in  the  world 
has  physical  reality;  and  these  two  statements 
do  not  contradict  each  other. 

In  the  same  way  psychology  is  right,  but  the 
psychologism  which  considers  the  psychological 
elements  and  their  mechanism  as  reality  is  wrong 
from  its  root  to  its  top,  and  this  psychologism  is 
pot  a bit  better  than  materialism.  . , , A 


62 


Henri  Bergson 


psychical  element  p . . has  as  little  reality  as 
have  the  atoms  of  the  physicist.  Our  body  is 
not  a heap  of  atoms ; our  inner  life  is  still  less  a 
heap  of  ideas  and  feelings  and  emotions  and  vo- 
litions, if  we  are  to  take  these  mental  things  in 
the  way  the  psychologist  has  to  take  them,  as 
contents  of  consciousness  made  up  of  psychical 
elements.” 


VIII 

THE  TRUE  METHOD  OF  META- 
PHYSICS: INTUITION 


VIII 


THE  TRUE  METHOD  OF  METAPHYSICS:  IN- 
TUITION 

What,  then,  is  the  net  result  so  far  as  man’s 
ability  to  fathom  the  nature  of  reality  is  con- 
cerned? Does  Bergson’s  doctrine  issue  in  scep- 
ticism or  agnosticism,  as  Mr.  H.  Wildon  Carr 
and  others  have  suggested? 

That  would  be  the  case,  Bergson  answers,  if 
man  were  pure  intellect,  and  if  the  only  kind  of 
knowledge  accessible  to  man  were  scientific 
knowledge.  Scientific  knowledge,  pursued  ex- 
clusively, does  indeed  lead  to  relativism  and  scep- 
ticism. But  man  is  not  shut  up  to  the  necessity 
of  always  transmuting  reality  into  scientific  con- 
cepts and  symbols.  There  is  an  entirely  differ- 
ent method  of  approaching  truth.  This  method, 
as  has  been  already  hinted,  is  intuition. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  the  philosopher  must 
employ  terms  which  have  long  been  in  common 
use,  or  else  run  the  risk  of  not  being  understood 
at  all.  Such  words  become  smooth  and  char- 
acterless, like  coins  which  have  long  been  in  cir- 
culation. What  is  the  meaning  of  the  term 
intuition,  as  used  so  commonly  in  everyday 
65 


66 


Henri  Bergson 


speech,  and  in  philosophy  and  theology?  One 
cannot  give  the  meaning  of  the  term,  for  it  has 
no  one  meaning ; one  can  only  give  its  meanings, 
of  which,  omitting  the  more  unusual  and  tech- 
nical, there  seem  to  be  about  four. 

It  is  used,  in  the  first  place,  as  the  equivalent 
of  sense-perception,  the  immediate  apprehen- 
sion of  physical  reality,  as  when  one  examines 
an  object,  like  an  orange,  and  receives  the 
various  sense  impressions,  visual,  tactual,  olfac- 
tory and  other,  which  seem  to  emanate  from  it. 
It  is  used,  secondly,  for  introspection,  for  the  im- 
mediate apprehension  of  our  inner  states,  as 
when  one  observes  introspectively  some  emotion, 
impulse  or  train  of  ideas  which  runs  its  course 
in  the  mind.  Intuition  is  also  used,  third,  for 
an  alleged  immediate,  that  is,  unreasoned,  know- 
ledge of  certain  so-called  first  principles,  funda- 
mental truths,  etc.,  like  the  existence  of  God,  the 
freedom  of  the  will,  and  the  like,  which,  though 
unreasoned,  are  said  to  be  known  with  the  cer- 
tainty of  mathematical  axioms.  Finally,  the 
term  is  used  in  a somewhat  more  cabalistic  sense 
to  stand  for  a sort  of  mystical  approach  to 
truth,  a process  in  which  ecstatic  and  emotional 
promptings  figui'e  conspicuously,  a sort  of  in- 
effable illumination  or  supernatural  vision,  quite 
unlike  the  various  more  mundane  forms  of  sen- 
sory and  intellectual  knowledge  known  to  ortho- 
dox science  and  philosophy. 


True  Method  of  Metaphysics  67 


In  which  of  these  various  senses,  if  any,  does 
Bergson  employ  the  term  intuition?  James 
drops  an  interesting  hint  in  the  passage  in  A 
Pluralistic  Universe  which  was  quoted  above,  ac- 
cording to  which  intuition  means  simply  sense 
perception,  a “ turning  toward  sensation,  that 
flesh-bound  thing  which  rationahsm  has  always 
loaded  with  abuse.”  The  contrast,  as  James 
outlines  it,  is  simply  between  immediate  sense 
perception,  on  the  one  hand,  and  conceptual 
knowledge,  on  the  other,  an  interpretation  which 
seems  to  have  been  suggested  more  by  James’ 
own  epistemological  predilections  than  by  a care- 
ful reading  of  Bergson’s  text. 

It  would  be  an  interesting  philological  task  to 
collect  and  to  study  comparatively  the  various 
passages  referring  to  intuition  which  are  scat- 
tered throughout  Bergson’s  writings.  Such  a 
study  would  certainly  show  that  intuition  is  not 
the  same  as  the  intellectual  or  conceptual  know- 
ledge of  science;  it  would  almost  as  certainly 
show,  I think,  that  it  is  something  more  active 
and  esoteric  than  sensational  or  perceptual 
knowledge,  as  this  is  ordinarily  understood.  If 
any  ambiguity  attaches  to  the  term  it  must  be 
that  the  experience  referred  to  is  one  which  can- 
not easily  be  conveyed  by  description,  thus  sup- 
porting (and  shall  we  say  refuting?)  Bergson’s 
position  with  regard  to  the  communicability  of 
any  first-hand  experience.  And  Bergson  more 


68 


Henri  Bergson 


than  once  hints  that  each  man  must  exercise  in- 
tuition for  himself  if  he  would  know  what 
reality,  and,  I presume,  what  intuition  is.^ 

This  does  not,  however,  prevent  Bergson  from 
trying,  time  and  again,  to  convey  some  notion  of 
what  he  means  by  intuition.  “ If  it  isn’t  clear,” 
some  one  has  said,  “ it  isn’t  French.”  Well,  if 
the  meaning  of  intuition  in  Bergson  is  not  clear, 
it  is  certainly  not  the  fault  of  Bergson,  who  is 
too  sincerely  French  to  repeat  the  well-worn  trick 
of  dealing  with  a difficulty  by  studiously  avoid- 
ing it. 

In  Creative  Evolution  he  refers  repeatedly  to 
a “ vague  nebulosity  ” which  surrounds  the 
“ luminous  nucleus  ” which  we  call  the  intellect. 
“ Therein,”  he  asserts,  “ reside  certain  powers 
that  are  complementary  to  the  understanding, 
powers  of  which  we  have  only  an  indistinct  feel- 
ing when  we  remain  shut  up  in  ourselves,  but 
which  will  become  clear  and  distinct  when  they 
perceive  themselves  at  work,  so  to  speak,  in  the 
evolution  of  nature.” 

Elsewhere  in  the  same  work  he  says : “ The 
feeling  we  have  of  our  evolution  and  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  all  things  is  there,  forming  around  the 
intellectual  concept  properly  so-called  an  indis- 
tinct fringe  that  fades  off  into  darkness.  . . . 

1 In  a letter  to  an  American  correspondent  Bergson 
writes  that  his  intuition  of  duration  “ r^pugne  a I’essence 
meme  du  langage,”  i.  e.,  it  is  essentially  ineffable,  an  eso- 
teric mystery. 


True  Method  of  Metaphysics  69 


This  nucleus  has  been  formed  out  of  the  rest  by 
condensation,  and  . . . the  whole  must  be  used, 
the  fluid  as  well  as  and  more  than  the  condensed, 
in  order  to  grasp  the  inner  movement  of  life. 
Indeed,  if  the  fringe  exists,  however  delicate  and 
indistinct,  it  should  have  more  importance  for 
philosophy  than  the  bright  nucleus  it  surrounds. 
For  it  is  its  presence  that  enables  us  to  affirm 
that  the  nucleus  is  a nucleus,  that  pure  intellect 
is  a contraction,  by  condensation,  of  a more  ex- 
tensive power.  And,  just  because  this  vague 
intuition  is  of  no  help  in  directing  our  action  on 
things,  which  action  takes  place  exclusively  on 
the  surface  of  reality,  we  may  presume  that  it 
is  to  be  exercised  not  merely  on  the  surface, 
but  below.” 

A favourite  way  of  describing  intuition  is  to 
say  that  it  is  a process  of  installing  oneself 
within  reality,  transporting  oneself  into  the 
process  of  becoming  itself,  rather  than  taking 
mere  “ views  ” of  it  from  without.  “ On  ap- 
pelle  intuition,”  Bergson  says  in  a critical  pas- 
sage in  his  Introduction  a la  Metaphysique, 
“ cette  espece  de  sympathie  intellectuelle  par 
laquelle  on  se  transporte  a I’interieur  d’un  objet 
pour  coincider  avec  ce  qu’il  a d’unique  et  par 
consequent  d’inexprimable.”  “ Intuition  is  a 
kind  of  intellectual  sympathy  in  virtue  of  which 
one  installs  himself  within  the  object  in  order  to 
come  upon  that  in  the  object  which  is  unique  and 


70 


Henri  Bergson 


hence  inexpressible.”  This  is  contrasted  with 
analysis  which  is  “ the  operation  by  which  one 
reduces  the  object  to  such  elements  as  are  al- 
ready known,  such  as  the  object  has  in  common 
with  other  objects.” 

The  notion  of  intuition  does  not  give  us  much 
trouble  so  long  as  we  confine  ourselves  to  the 
observation  of  our  own  inner  life,  for  we  doubt- 
less do  have  an  immediate  and  sympathetic  ac- 
quaintance with  our  thoughts,  emotions  and  will- 
attitudes  which  no  one  can  take  from  us,  and 
which  no  amount  of  psychological  description 
could  possibly  replace.  Intuition  of  the  inner 
life  might,  then,  mean  simply  living  it,  and 
grasping  the  whole  of  it  in  a single,  sympathetic 
view.  In  such  an  intuition,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  the  terms  and  distinctions  of  the  psycho- 
logy books  would  be  completely  left  behind,  and 
the  soul  life  would  be  apprehended  in  its  indi- 
visible unity  — a unity  in  which  there  would  be 
no  external  juxtaposition  of  parts,  previously 
scissored  out  of  the  concrete  flow  of  experience, 
and  no  sharply  sundered  before  and  after,  but  a 
complete  interpenetration  of  phases,  each  phase 
qualifying  and  impregnating  every  other.  The 
content  of  intuition  is  pure  “ duration  ” ; in- 
tuition is  just  this  non-analytical  appreciation 
of  the  unbroken  flow  of  inner  experiences  — un- 
broken except  for  the  qualitative  modulations 
within  it,  those  variations  of  colour  and  em- 


True  Method  of  Metaphysics  71 

phasis  which  render  our  inner  life  so  replete 
with  interest  and  vicissitude. 

So  far  the  matter  is  simple  enough.  But 
when  we  come  to  inquire  into  the  power  of  intu- 
ition to  penetrate  external  nature  (provided  we 
really  mean  more  by  intuition  than  simple  sense 
perception),  the  problem  becomes  decidedly 
more  difficult.  Precisely  what,  we  may  ask,  does 
Bergson  mean  by  installing  oneself  within  a 
reality  other  than  ourselves  ? He  evidently  does 
not  mean  to  suggest  a mere  extension  of  our  per- 
ceptual knowledge  by  an  exploration  of  the 
object’s  inner  structure,  as  when  we  cut  into  the 
earth’s  crust  in  order  to  learn  its  geological 
formation.  The  inner  life  of  an  object,  in 
Bergson’s  sense,  would  hardly  be  revealed  by 
such  an  anatomical  investigation,  any  more  than 
the  psychical  life  which  is  supposed  to  go  in 
the  brain  would  be  revealed  by  a study  of  its 
inner  structure,  or  any  more  than  the  life  of  a 
college,  or  college  spirit,  could  be  found  by  look- 
ing inside  the  buildings  rather  than  at  their  out- 
sides. 

The  phrase  “ intellectual  sympathy  ” used  by 
Bergson  in  the  definition  of  intuition  quoted 
above  seems  to  suggest  the  ansvrei’.  The 
process  of  intuition  appears  to  involve  an  ascrip- 
tion to  nature  of  a psychical  life  similar 
to  our  own.  It  is  only  by  thus  animating  it, 
by  viewing  it  in  impassioned  contemplation,  that 


72 


Henri  Bergson 


I can  penetrate  nature’s  outward  shell,  and  enter 
into  the  true  inwardness  of  its  life.  This  seems 
to  be  the  meaning  of  Bergson’s  statement  that 
knowledge  implies  a coincidence  of  the  mind 
with  the  generative  act  of  reality,  with  the  evolu- 
tion of  things:  the  only  way  to  know  an  object, 
he  often  asserts,  is  to  become  it.  We  seem  to 
have  here  the  familiar  thought  of  idealism  that 
there  must  an  ontological  affinity  between  the 
mind  and  its  object  if  the  mind  is  really  to  know 
its  object. 

The  reader  acquainted  with  the  philosophy  of 
Leibniz  must  have  noticed  that  the  phases  of 
Bergson’s  doctrine  just  touched  upon  are  rather 
distinctly  reminiscent  of  certain  characteristic 
views  of  the  illustrious  German  savant  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  Reality,  according  to 
Leibniz,  consists  ultimately  of  monads,  indivis- 
ible centers  of  sentiency  and  energy,  each  of 
which,  as  the  name  implies,  is  completely  self- 
enclosed,  completely  cut  off  from  its  surround- 
ings. It  is  a true  individual.  Monads,  to  use 
the  picturesque  language  of  Leibniz,  have  no 
windows,  so  that  nothing  can  enter  into  them  or 
pass  out.  If  that  is  the  case,  how  can  one 
monad  ever  know  the  other How  can  the 
monad  which  is  the  soul,  for  example,  ever  know 
the  world? 

It  is  possible,  Leibniz  answers,  only  because 
each  monad  is  the  world  in  miniature;  it  is  a 


True  Method  of  Metaphysics  73 


microcosm  reflecting  the  world  in  its  entirety 
within  its  own  inner  life.  Upon  its  little  stage 
the  drama  of  the  world  is  re-enacted.  “ Every- 
thing is  in  everything,”  a French  writer  has  said, 
and  Tennyson  suggests  that  if  we  knew  the 
flower  in  the  crannied  wall,  root  and  branch,  that 
is,  if  we  had  an  intimate  and  exhaustive  know- 
ledge of  it,  then  we  should  know  what  God  and 
man  are.  The  typical  character  of  every  item 
of  reality  seems  to  be  in  mind  in  both  these  state- 
ments. 


I 


; 


IX 

THE  TRUE  METHOD  OF  META- 
PHYSICS: INTUITION 
(Continued) 


IX 


THE  TRUE  METHOD  OF  METAPHYSICS  : INTUITION 

(Continued) 

It  will  perhaps  aid  us  in  getting  some  notion 
of  the  intellectual  sympathy  of  which  Bergson 
speaks,  the  Miterleben,  that  sharing  of  the  inner 
life  of  the  reality  which  we  aspire  to  grasp,  if  we 
remind  ourselves  of  some  illustrations  of  this 
process  with  which  we  are  acquainted  in  our 
experience. 

The  projection  of  our  own  ideas  and  feelings 
into  the  mind  of  another  person  is  of  course  a 
very  familiar  process,  and  the  hopeless  Inability 
of  two  persons  to  understand  each  other  if  there 
exists  between  them  some  invincible  discrepancy 
of  temperament  or  point  of  view  is  one  of  the 
most  familiar  of  human  experiences.  The  only 
way  to  understand  a writer  or  an  historical 
figure,  we  often  hear,  is  to  suppress,  for  the  time 
being,  one’s  own  merely  private  personality  or 
selfhood,  to  take  the  point  of  view  of  the  person 
concerned,  etc. 

The  nearest  analogue  to  this  partial  assimila- 
tion of  subject  and  object  in  our  relation  with 
77 


78 


Henri  Bergson 


what  is  usually  considered  the  inanimate  world  is 
the  process  of  so-called  aesthetic  sympathy  (the 
German  Einfiihlung)  by  which,  to  use  the  words 
of  Groos,  “ we  live  through  the  psychic  life  which 
a lifeless  object  would  experience  if  it  possessed 
a mental  life  like  our  own.” 

Many  writers  on  aesthetics  have  indeed  made 
this  humanising  of  the  object  of  aesthetic  ap- 
preciation the  essential  condition  of  the  aesthetic 
gratification  which  it  yields.  So  the  poet 
Schiller,  to  cite  only  one  notable  instance,  de- 
fined the  nature  of  beauty  to  be  freedom-in- 
the-appearance,  or  phenomenal  freedom,  which, 
translated  into  everyday  English,  simply  means 
that  any  object,  in  order  to  appear  beautiful, 
must  have  the  appearance  of  freedom,  must  be 
free  from  any  trace  of  constraint  or  stress. 
Thus,  a rugged  oak,  a beautiful  vase,  a slender 
birch,  or,  to  use  Schiller’s  crowning  instance,  a 
beautiful  personality,  all  alike  convey  the  sug- 
gestion of  poised  self-mastery,  of  perfect  free- 
dom. In  all  these  cases  the  process  of  Einfiih- 
lung,  or  empathy,  as  Professor  Titchener  has 
recently  called  it,  seems  to  take  place.  We 
imagine  the  object  as  capable  of  feeling  distress 
incident  to  outward  constraint,  the  exhilaration 
and  joy  of  freedom,  etc. 

Bergson,  indeed,  in  a significant  passage  in 
Creative  Evolution,  makes  the  identical  compar- 
ison between  metaphysical  and  sesthetic  intuition 


True  Method  or  Metaphysics  79 


of  which  we  are  here  speaking.  “ That  an  effort 
of  this  kind,”  Bergson  says,  referring  to  in- 
tuition, “ is  not  impossible,  is  proved  by  the 
existence  in  man  of  an  aesthetic  faculty  along 
with  normal  perception.  Our  eye  perceives  the 
features  of  a living  being  merely  as  assembled, 
not  as  mutually  organised.  The  intention  of 
life,  the  simple  movement  that  runs  through  the 
lines,  that  binds  them  together  and  gives  them 
significance,  escapes  it.  This  intention  is  just 
what  the  artist  tries  to  regain,  in  placing  himself 
back  within  the  object  by  a kind  of  sympathy,  in 
breaking  down,  by  an  effort  of  intuition,  the 
barrier  that  space  puts  up  between  him  and  his 
model.”  In  more  than  one  place,  indeed, 
especially  in  the  Introduction  a la  Metaphysique, 
Bergson  compares  the  philosopher  with  the  poet. 
Neither  employs  the  method  of  analysis  upon 
which  science  exclusively  relies:  their  common 
method  is  intuition. 

The  whole  point  of  view  presented  here  will 
doubtless  be  better  appreciated  by  the  nature 
poet  of  the  Wordsworthian  type  than  by  the 
scientist  or  philosopher  whose  finer  perception 
has,  according  to  Bergson,  been  dulled,  and  his 
power  of  immediate  insight  stultified,  by  the 
method  of  scientific  indirection  which  he  has  long 
practised.  Writers  on  literature  have  of  course 
made  much  of  the  peculiar  gifts  of  the  poet,  and 
poetry  abounds  in  passages  the  sweep  and  in- 


80 


Henri  Bergson 


sight  of  which  does  sometimes  seem  to  place  the 
poet  under  a category  exclusively  his  own.  One 
of  the  most  notable  examples  of  nature  anima- 
tion and  of  dramatic  sympathy  with  nature’s 
supposed  inner  life  is  the  exquisite  piece  of 
rhetoric  in  Part  V of  Browning’s  Paracelsus,  the 
first  lines  of  which  could  not  be  improved  upon 
as  a description  of  Bergson’s  distinction  between 
intellect  and  instinct: 

I knew,  I felt  (perception  unexpressed. 
Uncomprehended  by  our  narrow  thought. 

But  somehow  felt  and  known  in  every  shift 
And  change  of  the  spirit, — nay  in  every  pore 
Of  the  body,  even), — what  God  is,  what  we  are. 
What  life  is  — , etc. 

That  the  psychic  life  of  nature  is  merely 
projected  into  nature  dramatically  by  man  is 
suggested  by  Browning  with  a clearness  which 
ought  to  satisfy  even  so  disenchanted  a critic 
of  Bergson  as  Mr.  Santayana,  who  appears  to 
see  in  this  philosopher  little  more  than  a 
“ literary  psychologist  ” : 

Not  alone 

For  their  possessor  dawn  those  qualities. 

But  the  new  glory  mixes  with  the  heaven 
And  earth;  man,  once  descried,  imprints  forever 
His  presence  on  all  lifeless  things:  the  winds 
Are  henceforth  voices,  wailing  or  a shout, 

A querulous  mutter  or  a quick  gay  laugh. 

Never  a senseless  gust  now  man  is  born. 


True  Method  of  Metaphysics  81 


The  herded  pines  commune  and  have  deep  thoughts, 
A secret  they  assemble  to  discuss 
When  the  sun  drops  behind  their  trunks  which 
glare 

Like  grates  of  hell:  the  peerless  cup  afloat 
Of  the  lake-lily  is  an  urn,  some  nymph 
Swims  bearing  high  above  her  head:  no  bird 
Whistles  unseen,  but  through  the  gaps  above 
That  let  light  in  upon  the  gloomy  woods, 

A shape  peeps  from  the  breezy  forest-top. 

Arch  with  small  puckered  mouth  and  mocking  eye. 
The  morn  has  enterprise,  deep  quiet  droops 
With  evening,  triumph  takes  the  sunset  hour. 
Voluptuous  transport  ripens  with  the  corn 
Beneath  the  warm  moon  like  a happy  face: 
and  so  on. 

The  passage  is  too  long  for  citation  in  extenso, 
but  the  reader  may  be  interested  to  turn  to  it 
and  read  it  in  full  for  a masterly  illustration  of 
an  animism  such  as  Bergson  seems  to  advocate. 
This  is  of  course  not  offered  as  an  isolated  in- 
stance of  its  kind,  as  nature  personification,  in 
its  various  types  and  grades,  is  one  of  the  most 
common  devices  employed  by  the  literary  artist. 

That  the  act  of  intuition  is  a difficult  one  is  for 
Bergson  beyond  doubt,  and  he  often  insists  upon 
it.  One  cannot  read  the  Introduction,  for  ex- 
ample, in  which  Bergson  often  reiterates  the  dif- 
ficulty of  intuition,  and  ever  confuse  it  again 
with  the  process  of  simple  sense  perception,  as 
James  seems  to  do. 


82 


Henri  Bergson 


The  coarse  necessity  of  living  and  acting,  as 
Bergson  somewhere  puts  it,  and  the  intellectual 
instrumentalities  made  necessary  thereby,  have 
accustomed  us  to  a certain  side-by-sideness  of 
things,  a certain  crust  or  covering  of  spatial 
framework,  which  has  all  but  ruined  our  sight 
for  the  inner  unity  of  life,  the  intention  of  life  in 
its  living  wholeness. 

Intuition  in  man  is  but  vague  and  intermit- 
tent. “ It  is  a lamp  almost  extinguished,  which 
glimmers  only  now  and  then,  for  a few  moments 
at  most.  But  it  glimmers  wherever  a vital  in- 
terest is  at  stake.  On  our  personality,  on  our 
liberty,  on  the  place  we  occupy  in  the  whole  of 
nature,  on  our  origin  and  perhaps  also  on  our 
destiny,  it  throws  a light  feeble  and  vacillating, 
but  which  none  the  less  pierces  the  darkness  of 
the  night  in  which  the  intellect  leaves  us.” 
These  fleeting  intuitions,  which  now  light  up 
their  object  only  at  distant  intervals,  philosophy 
ought  to  seize  upon,  to  sustain,  to  expand,  and 
at  last  unite.  The  more  it  advances,  the  more 
clearly  will  it  see  that  intuition  is  mind  itself, 
and,  in  a certain  sense,  life  itself. 


X 

OF  EVOLUTION  AND  CREATION 


X 


OF  EVOLUTION  AND  CREATION 

We  have  now  sketched  roughly  the  ground- 
work of  Bergson’s  system,  upon  which,  as  we 
said,  much  else  depends.  It  will  be  possible  to 
indicate  only  briefly,  in  conclusion,  a few  of  the 
main  metaphysical  positions  which  seem  to  result 
from  the  general  view  Bergson  takes  of  the  na- 
ture of  intellectual  knowledge,  and  from  that 
more  intimate  view  of  the  inwardness  of  nature 
which  intuition  affords. 

The  three  theories  of  Bergson  which  will  likely 
prove  of  most  general  Interest  are  his  theories 
of  evolution,  of  the  existence  in  nature  of  de- 
sign, and  of  the  freedom  of  the  will.  Let  us 
take  these  problems  up  in  their  order. 

One  of  the  difficult  points  in  the  interpretation 
of  Bergson’s  system  is  to  ascertain  the  precise 
status  of  matter  in  the  universe.  In  spite  of  the 
universal  animism  which  Bergson  often  appears 
to  teach,  we  find  him  throwing  mind  and  matter 
into  rather  sharp  opposition,  as  if  they  were  two 
entirely  discrepant  and  non-equitable  principles, 
like  oil  and  water,  which  will  mingle  but  not  mix. 

85 


86 


Henri  Bergson 


It  is  rather  important  to  call  attention  to  this 
point  here,  for  evolution  seems  to  be  largely  the 
outcome  of  an  incessant  struggle  between  these 
two  fundamental  forces.  Life  seems  to  be  the 
active  principle,  and  matter  a refractory  some- 
tliing,  a sort  of  weight  or  foil,  with  which  life  has 
to  keep  up  an  incessant  struggle.  The  life  force 
at  the  bottom  of  all  evolution  might  be  compared 
with  the  energy  of  a burning  rocket  which  raises 
it  through  the  all’,  while  matter  might  be  likened 
to  the  rocket  itself,  whose  inertia  has  constantly 
to  be  overcome,  and  which  falls  to  the  earth 
again  as  soon  as  the  force  inside  it  has  become 

I sufficiently  weak,  or  has  spent  itself.  Life  is  in 
one  place  summarily  described  as  a tendency  to 
act  on  inert  matter.  Intelligence  and  instinct 
are  said  to  be,  at  an  early  stage  of  evolution, 
“ prisoners  of  a matter  which  they  are  not  yet 
able  to  control.”  Elsewhere  Bergson  speaks  of 
human  action  being  exercised  on  matter,  of  our 
being  able  to  act  only  with  inert  matter  for  an 
instrument,  of  the  movement  of  life  being  “ up,” 
while  the  movement  of  matter  is  an  inverse 
movement,  an  “ undivided  movement  of  descent,” 
and  so  on. 

Whether  the  notion  of  matter  as  a substance 
entirely  disparate  from  life  is  really  consonant 
with  the  rest  of  Bergson’s  system,  or  whether  it 
is  intrinsically  intelligible,  it  does  serve  a rather 
important  dialectical  purpose  here  because  it 


Of  Evolution  and  Creation  87 


tends  to  throw  into  clear  relief  another  idea 
which  is  of  capital  importance  for  any  theory  of 
evolution  that  is  to  prove  at  all  satisfactory. 

This  is  the  notion  of  the  vital  impulse,  the  elan 
vital,  a sort  of  tension  or  inner  urgency  which  is 
the  real  driving  force  of  evolution,  the  power  be- 
hind the  whole  of  things,  without  which  there 
could  be  no  change  or  development  at  all. 

In  order  to  bring  out  the  full  significance  of 
this  principle,  let  us  contrast  Bergson’s  view  of 
evolution  with  the  reigning  natural  science  the- 
ory of  it  (let  us  call  it  the  hangman  theory,  for 
short)  according  to  which  the  prevalence  of 
efficient  forms  of  animal  life,  for  example,  to- 
gether with  all  the  delicate  adaptations  existing 
in  nature,  are  explained  by  the  destructive  effect 
of  the  environment  acting  mechanically  upon  the 
poorly  adapted  or  unfit  forms.  Thus  nature 
will  exercise  a “ preferential  selection  ” of  animal 
forms,  say,  equipped  with  good  protective  cov- 
ering, with  organs  of  defence,  like  horns  or 
claws,  with  fleetness  of  foot,  ferocity,  endurance, 
sensory  acuteness,  and  other  such  features  hav- 
ing “ survival  value.”  Nature  stands  by,  like  an 
executioner,  ready  to  cut  down  such  forms  as 
are  not  able,  on  account  of  their  inferior  equip- 
ment, to  maintain  themselves. 

Thus,  through  the  action  of  “ natural  selec- 
tion,” the  fittest  always  survive,  and  tend  to 
transmit,  through  heredity,  their  valuable  traits 


88 


Henri  Bergson 


to  their  offspring.  In  this  way  the  gradual  im- 
provement which  seems  to  be  taking  place  in  all 
departments  of  nature  and  life  is  said  to  be  com- 
pletely explained. 

Two  points  are  worthy  of  notice.  One  is  that 
the  factors  involved  in  bringing  about  change 
or  evolution,  namely  natural  selection  and  hered- 
ity, are  so-called  natural  factors,  that  is,  they 
are  blind  or  mechanical  in  their  operation.  In 
the  second  place,  their  activity  is  merely  nega- 
tive and  critical,  not  creative  or  productive : they 
merely  destroy  ill-adapted  fonns,  and  at  most 
maintain  those  which  happen  to  be  well  ad- 
justed to  the  conditions  under  which  they  are  to 
exist.  Their  function,  if  we  may  say  so,  is  not 
productive,  but  only  permissive. 

Well,  it  does  not  take  an  unusual  power  of  re- 
flection to  see  that  a purely  critical  and  destruc- 
tive agency  cannot  account  for  the  continual 
origination  of  things,  although  it  may  very 
well  account  for  their  survival  after  they  have 
once  come  into  existence.  It  is  plain  that  in 
order  for  an  executioner  to  have  employment  he 
must  have  subjects.  In  order  for  the  forces  of 
nature  to  eliminate  forms,  there  must  be  forms 
to  eliminate  — there  must  be  a tendency  on  the 
part  of  nature  to  produce  organisms  and  varia- 
tions before  the  environment  can  begin  its  se- 
lective and  destructive  industry.  But  this 


Of  Evolution  and  Creation  89 


point,  important  as  it  is,  seems  to  be  rather  neg- 
lected by  current  evolution  theories. 

Science  has  of  course  often  noticed  the  redund- 
ancy of  nature  from  whose  prolific  lap  spring 
countless  forms  of  life,  so  many,  indeed,  as 
often  to  be  unable  to  maintain  themselves  on  the 
limited  means  of  subsistence  which  nature  af- 
fords, like  parents  who  bring  more  children  into 
the  world  than  they  are  able  decently  to  rear. 
But  the  very  thing  which  science  presupposes  or 
treats  as  negligible  has  been  thought  by  philoso- 
phers to  be  of  first-rate  importance  for  a theory 
of  the  universe,  and  many  of  them,  including 
Bergson  himself,  have  raised  what  seemed  to 
many  an  unimportant  point  into  a central  prin- 
ciple.^ The  most  fundamental  tendency  of  na- 

1 Science  has  indeed  been  suflSciently  troubled  by  such 
phenomena  as  discontinuous  variation,  of  regeneration, 
repair,  of  growth  through  exercise,  and  the  like,  which 
not  only  are  not  explained  by  natural  selection,  but  which 
even  suggest  a creative  principle  and  the  existence  of 
purpose  in  nature.  The  hope  of  science,  however,  has 
always  been  to  bring  these  phenomena  under  the  domi- 
nation of  purely  mechanistic  hypotheses.  Read,  for  ex- 
ample, Henderson,  The  Fitness  of  the  Environment, 
especially  Chapter  VIII.  After  some  consideration  of 
the  anomalous  phenomena  above  referred  to,  Mr.  Hen- 
derson concludes ; “ To  sum  up,  it  appears  certain  that 
at  least  in  a few  instances,  and  possibly  quite  generally, 
purposeful  tendencies  exist  in  the  organism  which  seem 
to  be  inexplicable  by  natural  selection  or  any  other  ex- 
isting mechanistic  hypothesis.  It  is  not  too  much  to 
hope  that  a scientific  explanation  of  these  phenomena  in 


90 


Henri  Bergson 


ture,  and  that  which  is  after  all  the  most  in- 
teresting for  our  view  of  the  universe,  is  not 
the  tendency  to  cut  off  and  destroy,  but  to 
form  and  create. 

The  notion  of  variation  as  intrinsically  a form 
of  self-expression  on  the  part  of  the  organism 
itself  has,  of  course,  been  often  discussed  since 
the  days  of  Lamarck,  Goethe  and  Chambers.  It 
receives  a brilliant  corroboration  from  a fresh 
point  of  view  to-day  by  Bergson. 

The  living  spring  or  thrust,  which  is  nature  at 
its  deepest,  the  will  to  live  and  struggle,  without 
which  nature  would  be  like  a broken  bow  robbed 
of  its  resiliency,  is  perhaps  most  effectively  illus- 
trated by  the  individual  organism,  whose  sur- 
vival, as  we  well  know,  depends  not  merely  upon 
its  environment,  but  upon  itself.  Its  chances  for 
life  are  good  in  direct  proportion  as  it  shows 
conative  energy,  as  it  is  plucky  and  “ quick  on 
its  feet.” 

Paulsen  has  stated  the  whole  case  admirably : 
“ The  presupposition  of  all  development,  without 
which  the  above-mentioned  principles  (natural 
selection,  etc.)  would  have  no  support  for  their 
activity  is,  of  course,  the  will  to  live,  the  will  to 
struggle  for  existence,  common  to  all  things 
taking  part  in  evolution.  They  do  not  suffer 

whole  or  in  part  may  some  day  be  found;  but  mean- 
time they  constitute  the  natural  subject  of  vitalistic 
speculation.” 


Of  Evolution  and  Creation  91 


the  development  passively ; they  are  not,  like  the 
pebbles  in  the  brook,  pushed  into  a new  form  by 
mechanical  causes  acting  from  without.  Their 
own  activity  is  the  absolute  condition  for  the 
efficacy  of  natural  selection.  The  struggle  for 
existence  is  not  imposed  upon  individuals  from 
without ; it  is  their  own  will  to  fight  the  battle ; 
and  without  this  will,  the  will  to  preserve  and 
exercise  individual  life  and  produce  and  preserve 
offspring,  there  would  be  no  such  struggle  for 
existence  at  all.” 

Unless  such  a productive  and  active  principle 
is  presupposed,  it  does  seem  as  if  the  process  of 
evolution  could  never  get  going.  Nature,  like  a 
vast  engine  with  its  power  exhausted,  would  lie 
helpless  and  prone,  a monstrous  corpse  from 
which  every  trace  of  life  had  fled,  instead  of 
being  what  she  is,  a thing  pulsing  with  power 
and  life,  moving  forward,  with  an  inexhaustible 
energy  and  prolific  vitality,  through  the  count- 
less forms  and  phases  which  constitute  the 
-.universe’s  eventful  history. 

A leading  characteristic  of  Bergson’s  theory 
of  evolution,  which  seems  to  be  in  a way  a corol- 
lary of  the  foregoing,  is  that  evolution  is  a 
devenir  reel,  is  genuinely  creative,  making  real 
additions  to  the  past  and  the  present  each  puls- 
ing moment.  Creation  is  not  some  mythical 
event  enacted  once  for  all  at  some  mythical  be- 
ginning of  things,  as  represented  by  an  outworn 


92 


Henri  Bergson 


theology,  nor  is  it  a mere  shuffling  of  cards,  an 
eternal  redistribution  of  matter  and  energy,  as 
pictured  by  an  equally  obsolete  evolutionism. 
Evolution  means  the  genuine  elaboration  of  nov- 
elty, an  actual  augmentation  of  reality,  in  which 
fresh  items  of  being,  unprecedented  features, 
spring  constantly  into  existence. 

And  there  are  no  prophets ! There  might  be 
if  history  were  merely  the  unwinding  of  a scheme 
of  things  once  for  all  forged  in  the  eternities. 
But  it  is  not.  Rather  is  it  “ a progress  to  ever 
new  creations,  to  conclusions  incommensurable 
with  the  premises  and  indeterminable  by  relation 
to  them.”  Nature,  like  our  own  personality, 
“ shoots,  grows  and  ripens  without  ceasing.” 
The  future  is  not  made,  but  in  the  making.  It 
presents  an  infinity  of  unredeemed  possibilities. 
Its  unfolding  constitutes  true  history.  Man  is 
not  facing  his  destiny,  but  his  opportunity. 


XI 

OF  MECHANISM  AND  DESIGN 


XI 


OF  MECHANISM  AND  DESIGN 

A QUESTION  which  has  often  interested  poets 
and  philosophers  is  whether  nature  as  a whole 
is  purposive,  whether  there  exists  some 

One  far-off  divine  event 

To  which  the  whole  creation  moves, 

or  whether  the  events  and  processes  of  nature 
are  blind,  unaware,  that  is,  of  their  tendency  and 
objective,  like  a boulder,  shed  by  some  moon 
or  star,  which  rushes  through  the  vast  reaches 
of  space  ignorant  of  itself,  and  ignorant  of  where 
and  how  its  career  is  to  eventuate. 

Bergson  has  briefly  answered  this  question  in  a 
general  way  in  a passage  which  has  been  already 
quoted  in  another  connection.  Neither  mechan- 
ism nor  finalism,  he  there  said,  would  really  fit 
evolution,  but  finalism  “ might  be  recut  and  re- 
sewn, and  in  the  new  form  fit  less  badly  than  the 
other.”  ^ 

1 That  the  method  by  which  one  approaches  the  study 
of  evolution  will  profoundly  affect  the  classic  alternative 
of  mechanism  and  teleology  is  well  illustrated  by  the 
95 


96 


Henri  Bergson 


That  evolution  is  not  purely  mechanical,  its 
results,  Bergson  thinks,  sufficiently  show.  The 
most  convincing  disproof  of  pure  mechanism  is 
the  phenomenon  of  “ convergence  ” in  evolution, 
by  which  Bergson  simply  means  the  production 
of  similar  results  by  separate  lines  of  develop- 
ment. The  eyes  of  mollusks  and  vertebrates,  for 
example,  though  very  similar,  have  been  de- 
veloped along  different  and  independent  lines  of 

following  passage  from  Professor  Royce’s  The  Spirit  of 
Modern  Philosophy  (Lecture  XII),  in  which  he  is  elab- 
orating the  pregnant  distinction  between  the  point  of 
view  of  “ description  ” and  that  of  “ appreciation,”  a dis- 
tinction which  corresponds  roughly  to  the  Bergsonian 
one  between  scientific  analysis  and  intuition : “ An  evo- 
lution is  a series  of  events  that  in  itself  is  purely  phys- 
ical,— a set  of  necessary  occurrences  in  the  world  of 
space  and  time.  An  egg  develops  into  a chick;  a poet 
grows  up  from  infancy;  a nation  emerges  from  bar- 
barism; a planet  condenses  from  the  fluid  state,  and 
develops  the  life  that  for  millions  of  years  makes  it  so 
wondrous  a place.  Look  upon  all  these  things  de- 
scriptively, and  you  shall  see  nothing  but  matter  moving 
instant  after  instant,  each  instant  containing  in  its  full 
description  the  necessity  of  passing  over  into  the  next. 
Nowhere  will  there  be,  for  descriptive  science,  any  genu- 
ine novelty  or  any  discontinuity  admissible.  But  look 
at  the  whole  appreciatively,  historically,  synthetically,  as 
a musician  listens  to  a symphony,  as  a spectator  watches 
a drama.  Now  you  shall  seem  to  have  seen,  in  phenome- 
nal form,  a story.  ...  In  taking  such  a view  are  you 
likely  to  be  coming  nearer  to  the  inner  truth  of  things? 
Yes;  for  the  consciousness  of  the  Logos  must  be  one 
that  essentially  transcends  our  own  temporal  time-limi- 
tations; and  in  so  far  as  we  view  sequences  in  their 
wholeness,  we  are  therefore  likely  to  be  approaching  the 
unity  of  his  world-possessing  insight.” 


Of  Mechanism  and  Design  97 


evolution,  as  if  they  were  after  all  not  due  to 
accident,  that  mythical  bearer  of  a thousand 
burdens,  but  were  “ made  for  seeing.”  The 
theory  of  mechanism  would  have  to  be  abandoned 
for  some  form  of  teleology  “ if  it  could  be  proved 
that  life  may  manufacture  like  apparatus  by  un- 
like means,  on  divergent  lines  of  evolution ; ” and 
the  case  for  teleology  would  be  strong  in  propor- 
tion to  “ the  divergency  between  the  lines  of  evo- 
lution thus  chosen,  and  to  the  complexity  of  the 
similar  structures  found  in  them.” 

But  if  nature  is  an  artificer,  she  is  a somewhat 
unpractised,  bungling  artificer,  if  one  may 
judge  by  our  human  standards  of  valuation, 
which  are  the  only  ones  accessible  to  us.  There 
is  many  a miscarriage  in  nature,  and  many  a 
blind  alley,  and  abandoned  path,  eloquent  sou- 
venirs at  once  of  her  prodigal  methods  and  her 
unfailing  resourcefulness.  Evolution  is,  in 
fact,  a species  of  improvisation,  an  experiment 
in  creation  on  a vast  scale,  in  which  much  sur- 
vives and  is  carried  on,  and  much  falls  by  the 
way.  There  seems  to  be,  in  any  case,  no  sin- 
gle objective  towards  which  nature  moves,  as  it 
were,  by  the  shortest  road.  Developments  oc- 
cur along  many  divergent  paths : evolution  is 
not  linear,  but  sheaf-like  in  its  unfolding,  as  if 
there  were  not  one  goal,  but  many ; as  if,  at  any 
rate,  there  were  different  ways  of  approach  to 
the  same  ultimate  destination. 

The  two  fundamental  forms  of  psychical  life. 


98 


Henri  Bergson 


instinct  and  intelligence,  for  example,  do  not 
represent  successive  stages  of  a linear  develop- 
ment, but  rather  divergent  courses  which  evo- 
lution has  pursued.  “ The  cardinal  error,” 
Bergson  maintains,  “ which  from  Aristotle  on- 
wards has  vitiated  most  of  the  philosophies  of 
nature  is  to  see  in  vegetative,  instinctive  and 
rational  life  three  successive  degrees  of  the  de- 
velopment of  the  same  tendency,  whereas  they 
are  three  divergent  directions  of  an  activity 
that  has  split  up  as  it  grew.”  It  has  come 
about,  in  any  case,  that  intellect  and  instinct 
have  become  pretty  completely  differentiated 
on  different  lines  of  evolution,  “ intellect,”  as 
Mr.  Russell  wittily  says,  “ being  mainly  the 
misfortune  of  man,  while  instinct  is  seen  at  its 
best  in  ants,  bees  and  Bergson!” 

The  truth  is  that  nature  is  neither  so  blind 
nor  so  providential  as  the  sharp  alternatives 
developed  in  the  heat  of  partisan  controversies 
of  an  older  day  suggest.  The  powers  of  na- 
ture, as  Browning  has  it,  are 

Neither  put  forth  blindly,  nor  controlled 

Calmly  by  perfect  knowledge. 

Nature’s  progress  is  much  like  that  of  a missile 
hurled  from  the  hand:  we  know  that  it  is  mov- 
ing and  we  know  its  general  direction ; but  what 
its  eventual  destination  will  be,  no  one  can  with 
any  assurance  predict. 


Of  Mechanism  and  Design  99 


Thus  is  much  of  our  wisdom  concerning  the 
ends  of  nature  no  better  than  foolishness.  The 
purposes  of  God  in  nature,  if  they  truly  exist, 
are,  by  our  human  faculty,  in  the  end  unfathom- 
able. One  thinks  of  the  fine  word  of  Santayana, 
speaking  of  Spinoza,  that  great  teacher  of  the 
essential  unsearchableness  of  the  divine  wisdom : 
“ When  people  tell  us  that  they  have  the  key  to 
all  reality  in  their  pockets,  or  in  their  hearts, 
that  they  know  who  made  the  world,  and  why, 
or  know  that  everything  is  matter,  or  that 
everything  is  mind  — then  Spinoza’s  notion  of 
the  absolutely  infinite,  which  included  all  pos- 
sibilities, may  profitably  arise  before  us.  It 
will  counsel  us  to  say  to  those  little  gnostics,  to 
those  circumnavigators  of  being:  I do  not  be- 

lieve you ; God  is  great.” 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  MAN 


XII 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  MAN 

If  evolution  is  genuinely  creative,  elaborat- 
ing new  forms  of  reality  unceasingly,  it  would 
seem  as  if  the  pulsations  of  our  human  will, 
when  we  strive,  aspire  and  attain,  might  repre- 
sent the  very  birth-throbs  by  which  new  forms 
of  life  and  reality  were  constantly  being  pro- 
duced. Our  acts  might  then  truly  be  turning 
places,  as  James  splendidly  puts  it,  where  we 
catch  reality  in  the  making. 

That  human  acts  are  machine-made,  many 
persons,  turned  scientists,  have  indeed  asserted ; 
but  that  men  really  make  history,  and  really 
“ do  things,”  the  same  scientists,  when  they  turn 
men  again,  and  relapse  into  their  tender-minded 
state  (or  is  it  tough?)  seldom  have  the  hardi- 
hood to  deny. 

The  interminable  controversy  between  the 
champions  of  free  will  and  the  champions  of 
determinism,  as  is  usually  the  case  with  such 
controversies,  rests,  according  to  Bergson,  upon 
a fundamental  misunderstanding,  the  same  mis- 
understanding as  that  between  empiricism  and 
103 


104 


Henei  Bergson 


rationalism  in  their  controversy  regarding  the 
existence  of  the  soul.  All  parties  make  the  in- 
itial blunder  of  starting  with  the  mosaic  ac- 
count of  the  mental  life  furnished  by  analytical 
psychology,  an  account  which,  as  we  know,  sub- 
stitutes for  the  living,  concrete  self  — the 
fundamental  self,  as  Bergson  calls  it  — a set  of 
symbols,  a phantom  self,  made  up  of  a plurality 
of  discrete  mental  “ states,”  arranged  in  juxta- 
position, by  the  mechanical  play  and  interplay 
of  which  all  actions  are  to  be  explained. 

The  psychologist,  for  example,  speaks  of 
sympathy,  love,  hate,  etc.,  as  though  these  were 
so  many  independent,  isolated  forces,  whose 
several  impulsive  energies  were  somehow  de- 
terminable, and  from  the  resultant  forces  of 
which  actions  can  be  calculated.  We  are  here 
simply  imposed  upon  by  a trick  of  language 
which  denotes  an  infinite  number  of  nuances  by 
the  same  general  name.  For  each  of  us  has 
his  own  way  of  loving  and  hating:  in  fact  each 
separate  act  of  loving  and  hating  is  non-re- 
produceable,  because  its  particular  quality  and 
colour  are  determined  by  the  personality  as  a 
whole  in  the  moment  of  emotional  and  impulsive 
stress,  and  the  personality  is  never  the  same 
at  any  two  successive  instants. 

The  failure  to  distinguish  the  concrete,  funda- 
mental self  from  the  artificial  reconstruction 
of  it  which  psychology  gives  us  accounts  for 


The  Freedom  of  Man 


105 


the  invincible  discrepancy  between  the  “ feel- 
ing ” of  freedom,  and  the  scientific  conviction 
of  determinism.  A dead-lock  is  indeed  inevi- 
table here  for  the  simple  reason  that  one  party 
is  moving  within  the  super-intellectual  (Kant 
would  have  said  the  intelligible)  realm,  while 
the  other  is  moving  within  the  realm  of  the 
scientific  understanding.  But  freedom  can 
never  be  understood:  it  can  only  be  lived. 

The  type  of  determinism  just  discussed,  in 
which  action  is  supposed  to  be  determined  by 
the  interaction  of  discrete  mental  states,  might 
be  called  psychological  or  associationist  deter- 
minism, as  distinguished  from  physical  deter- 
minism, according  to  which  mental  states  are 
determined  by  brain  states.  Here  again  it 
must  be  remembered  that  the  whole  framework 
of  interconnecting  mental  and  brain  states  in 
parallel  series  is  a conceptual  construction,  an 
hypothesis,  which  has  never  received,  and,  in 
the  nature  of  the  case,  never  can  receive,  em- 
pirical verification  sufiiciently  extensive  to  give 
the  parallelist  view  any  other  status  than  that 
of  a working  hypothesis.  We  do,  indeed,  have 
an  apparent  parallelism  between  certain  ob- 
served members  of  the  physical  and  the  mental 
series  within  a limited  range ; but  to  extend  this 
parallelism  to  the  two  series  in  their  totality 
would  be  to  settle  the  whole  problem  of  freedom 
in  advance. 


106 


Henri  Bergson 


Bergson’s  view  of  the  relation  of  the  mind  to 
the  brain,  which  he  has  recently  expressed,  es- 
pecially in  his  lectures  at  the  University  of 
London,  in  fact  entirely  reverses  the  views  of 
this  relation  which  are  commonly  held. 

The  brain  is  usually  thought  to  furnish  the 
physical  conditions  for  the  rise  and  reminis- 
cence of  conscious  experience.  It  is  thought  to 
be  the  place  where  memories  are  somehow  stored 
and  held  in  readiness  to  be  recalled  upon  oc- 
casion. Memory  in  Bergson,  however,  is  a 
purely  psychical,  disembodied  faculty,  the 
brain  acting  merely  as  a selective  tool  which 
permits  only  useful  experiences  to  rise  above 
the  threshold  of  consciousness. 

The  view  that  the  brain  does  not  produce 
consciousness,  but  merely  transmits  it,  just  as 
window  glass  merely  transmits  the  daylight 
which  already  exists  outdoors,  has  of  course  been 
exploited  by  James  in  the  interest  of  immortal- 
ity in  his  well-known  little  book  called  by  that 
name.  In  Bergson,  too,  the  brain’s  function  is 
merely  transmissive  rather  than  productive. 
Just  as  light,  heat  or  electricity  cannot  pass 
through  matter  by  any  path,  but  must  take 
whatever  route  it  can,  whatever  path  it  finds 
most  pervious,  so  consciousness  can  express  it- 
self only  through  such  forms  of  matter  as  it 
finds  pervious  to  the  particular  kind  of  energy 
which  it  represents.  The  brain  might  then  be 


The  Freedom  of  Man 


107 


thought  of  as  composed  of  a kind  of  matter 
fitted  to  act  as  the  carrier  of  consciousness,  a 
kind  which,  so  to  speak,  consciousness  can 
penetrate. 

The  main  significance  of  the  brain  in  Berg- 
son, however,  is  not  derived  from  the  fact  that 
it  transmits  ideas,  but  from  the  fact  that  it 
fails  to  do  so ! So  far  from  the  brain’s  being 
an  organ  of  reminiscence,  it  is  rather  an  organ 
of  oblivion ! It  acts  as  a sort  of  mask  or  screen 
which  shuts  the  great  mass  of  our  ideas  from 
view.  The  purpose  of  ideas  and  experiences, 
it  must  be  remembered,  is  the  guidance  of  ac- 
tion. But  in  order  that  action  may  be  ef- 
fective, only  such  ideas  must  be  recalled  as  are 
relevant  to  the  situation  or  the  problem  to- 
wards which  action  is  pointed.  Without  the 
intervention  of  the  brain  the  flow  of  ideas 
would  be  so  copious  as  to  paralyse  action. 
Hamlet’s  inability  to  act  might  thus  be  ex- 
plained as  a lack  of  cerebral  inhibition,  result- 
ing in  an  exuberance  of  mentation  which  liter- 
ally paralysed  the  will. 

But  we  cannot  follow  these  interesting  psy- 
chophysical speculations  further.  Let  us  go 
straight  to  our  point.  Is  man  truly  free  in  his 
actions,  or  is  he  determined Bergson  would, 
I think,  answer.  Neither!  For  the  old  notion 
of  freedom,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  determina- 
tion, on  the  other,  Bergson  would  substitute 


108 


Henri  Bergson 


the  compromise  conception  of  self-determina- 
tion, a conception  indeed  well  domesticated  in 
modern  psychology  and  philosophy,  but  given  a 
fresh  prestige  through  the  sanction  of  our 
philosopher.  No  act  is  indeed  free  in  the  sense 
that  it  is  completely  uncoupled  from  the  mental 
life  of  the  man  with  whom  it  originates.  Man 
can  be  free,  however,  in  the  sense  that  he  can 
be  self-determined,  that  his  act  can  be  deter- 
mined by  the  nature  of  the  self  of  which  the  act 
is  the  expression.  If  freedom  is  thus  defined, 
there  will  evidently  be  degrees  of  freedom. 
Freedom  will  be  complete  only  where  the  funda- 
mental self  (not  the  self  of  psychology)  acts  in 
its  entirety,  where  the  whole  of  consciousness 
is  concerned  in  the  act. 

Most  of  us,  of  course,  do  not  have  the  sym- 
metry and  wholeness  of  mind  required  for  per- 
fect freedom.  An  incompletely  integrated  mass 
of  ideas,  impulses  and  feelings,  the  mind  tends 
always  to  act  locally,  so  to  speak ; a single 
idea,  as  in  hypnotic  suggestion,  tends  to  set  up 
for  itself  and  to  usurp  the  place  rightfully  be- 
longing to  the  self  as  a whole.  Similarly,  a 
hereditary  vice,  an  eccentric  impulse,  or  a habit 
will  so  dominate  the  rest  of  the  personality  as 
to  make  true  freedom  impossible.  Thus,  says 
Bergson  in  a splendid  passage  in  Time  and  Free 
Will,  “ many  live  this  kind  of  life,  and  die  with- 
out having  known  true  freedom.  But  sug- 


The  Fkeedom  of  Man 


109 


gestion  would  become  persuasion  if  the  entire 
self  assimilated  it;  passion,  even  sudden  pas- 
sion, would  no  longer  bear  the  stamp  of  fatal- 
ity if  the  whole  history  of  the  person  were 
reflected  in  it,  as  in  the  indignation  of  Alceste ; 
and  the  most  authoritative  education  would  not 
curtail  any  of  our  freedom  if  it  only  imparted 
to  us  ideas  and  feelings  capable  of  impregnat- 
ing the  whole  soul.  It  is  the  whole  soul,  in  fact, 
which  gives  rise  to  the  free  decision:  and  the 
act  will  be  so  much  the  freer  the  more  the 
dynamic  series  with  which  it  is  connected  tends 
to  be  the  fundamental  self.”  ^ 

1 The  summary  of  Bergson’s  doctrine  of  freedom 
which  I have  attempted  in  the  above  section  does  not, 
according  to  a criticism  which  I have  received  from  Mr. 
Lovejoy,  adequately  represent  Bergson’s  argument  as  set 
out  in  Chapter  III  of  Time  and  Free  Will.  “ That  argu- 
ment” (I  quote  Mr.  Lovejoy’s  memorandum  in  full) 
“ rests  chiefly  upon  Bergson’s  conception  of  duration  and 
of  consciousness  as  memory.  Every  moment  of  duration 
is  new.  And  since  we  carry  all  our  past  along  with  us,  in 
pure  memory,  then  at  every  fresh  moment  of  my  experience 
I am  an  unprecedented  complex — I consist  of  all  that  I 
have  been  plus  the  new  moment’s  increment  of  being. 
Therefore,  my  action  at  each  moment  is  free  in  the  sense 
that  it  is  the  unique  expression  of  an  unprecedented 
being’s  action  — it  cannot  be  assimilated  to  my  past  or 
reduced  to  any  law  that  can  be  learned  from  any  uni- 
formities of  my  past  action.”  I am  very  glad  to  quote 
this  criticism  as  it  brings  out  clearly  what  I myself 
omitted  to  emphasise  in  the  present  context  (although 
the  matter  is  touched  upon  elsewhere  in  my  discussion), 
namely  the  enormous  scope  of  the  self’s  history  which 
is  brought  to  bear  upon  the  present  act,  implied  in  Berg- 


110 


Henri  Bergson 


son’s  doctrine  of  pure  memory,  or  of  the  eternal  dura- 
bility of  any  experience.  The  critical  point  of  Berg- 
son’s argument,  however,  still  seems  to  me  to  be  the 
contention  that  determinism  is  bound  up  with  the  mosaic 
representation  of  the  mind  of  the  older  associationist 
psychology,  according  to  which  an  act  is  merely  the  re- 
sultant of  the  interplay  of  “ ideas  ” after  the  manner 
of  the  interaction  of  forces  in  mechanical  physics. 
The  act  of  the  mind,  however,  is  a true  “ schopferische 
Synthese,”  an  original  or  creative  resultant,  and  is  hence 
unpredictable.  Indeed,  unless  this  line  of  argument  is 
followed,  you  yield  the  whole  case  to  the  determinist, 
as,  according  to  him,  too,  the  present  is  merely  an  issue 
of  the  past. 


XIII 

RETROSPECT  AND  SUMMARY 


XIII 


RETROSPECT  AND  SUMMARY 

It  will  be  well  to  summarise  at  this  point 
the  salient  ideas  of  Bergson’s  philosoph}'^,  at 
least  in  so  far  as  we  have  been  able  to  outline 
them  in  the  foregoing  sketch. 

The  most  prominent  aspect  of  Bergson’s 
system,  the  aspect  which  is  of  the  utmost  sig- 
nificance for  many  of  the  concrete  problems  of 
reality  and  of  life,  is  his  criticism  of  intellec- 
tual knowledge.  Such  knowledge  does  not  give 
us  reality  as  it  is ; it  transmutes  reality  into  a 
set  of  symbols  which  are  useful  for  the  guidance 
of  action,  but  which  have  no  metaphysical  sig- 
nificance. 

If  philosophy  is  to  become  a true  metaphysic, 
it  must  relinquish  the  method  of  analysis  for 
that  of  intuition.  The  mind  must  place  itself 
into  a living  relation  with  its  object;  it  must, 
for  the  time,  become  the  object  through  the  ex- 
ercise of  intellectual  sympathy.  Thus  alone 
will  it  be  enabled  to  follow  the  creative  move- 
ment through  its  inner  mazes  and  sinuosities, 

and  to  grasp  it  in  its  living  wholeness,  instead 
113 


114 


Henri  Bergson 


of  seeing  it  as  so  many  things  or  states,  which 
are  only  the  intellect’s  stationary  views  of  be- 
coming. 

The  method  of  intuition,  as  might  have  been 
anticipated,  will  yield  very  different  results  from 
those  of  scientific  intellection.  In  psychology 
it  will  reveal  the  soul  to  be  the  indivisible  flux 
of  our  inner  life  as  we  actually  live  it,  instead 
of  a collection  of  discrete  states,  or  the  ab- 
stract unity  of  these  states.  Both  the  states 
and  the  unity  are  static  concepts  which  have 
been  scissored  out  of  the  concrete  flow  of  the 
inner  life,  and  have  no  metaphysical  signifi- 
cance whatever.  Similarly,  in  the  world  of 
matter,  our  practical  interests  break  up  the 
continuum  of  the  material  universe  into  an  ag- 
gregate of  atoms,  bodies,  classes,  etc.,  together 
with  their  shifting  relations ; the  true  reality  of 
things,  their  unceasing  mobility,  it  treats  as 
adventitious ; motion  is  viewed  as  a function  of 
rest,  etc.  Here,  too,  we  must  proceed  by  in- 
tuition. The  mind  must  take  up  its  stand 
within  the  stream  of  becoming.  It  must  live 
reality  instead  of  analysing  it. 

How  this  is  possible  we  found  it  rather  dif- 
ficult to  make  clear.  The  process  of  intuition 
seems  here  to  involve  an  ascription  to  nature  of 
a life  like  our  own,  thus  establishing  an  inner 
affinity  between  the  mind  and  its  object,  be- 
tween man  and  nature.  The  Leibnizian  no- 


Retrospect  and  Summary  115 


tion  of  the  fundamental  resemblance  between 
the  structure  and  life  of  all  items  of  reality,  of 
the  flower  and  the  wall,  of  man  and  God,  seems 
to  be  in  mind  here.  The  philosopher  must 
cease  to  be  analyst  and  become  artist.  His 
activity  must  become  sympathetic  and  apprecia- 
tive, rather  than  analytical  and  descriptive. 

The  abandonment  of  the  atomic  idea  of  the 
universe,  a fabrication  of  the  scientific  intellect, 
and  the  substitution  therefor  of  the  notion  of  the 
universe  as  a Hving  unity  will  necessitate  a 
radical  revision  of  many  philosophical  doc- 
trines whose  character  was  determined  through- 
out by  the  scientific  conceptions  upon  which 
they  were  based. 

Evolution  does  not  consist  in  an  eternal 
redistribution  of  self -identical  elements,  as  an 
obsolescent  system  of  cosmical  mechanics  pre- 
sented it,  but  is  a genuine  growth.  Nor  is 
evolution  fully  explained  by  the  critical  and 
destructive  action  of  the  environment,  as  re- 
presented by  an  equally  inadequate  biology. 
The  most  profound  aspect  of  nature  is  not  its 
tendency  to  cut  off  and  destroy,  but  to  elabo- 
rate and  produce.  Furthermore,  evolution  is 
not  a mere  re-shifting,  with  nothing  added  and 
nothing  taken  away.  It  is  a genuine  creation. 
It  proceeds  by  true  increments,  unceasingly 
elaborating  unprecedented  novelties  and  fresh 
features  of  reality  as  it  proceeds. 


116 


Henri  Bergson 


In  the  second  place,  if  we  relinquish  the 
method  of  abstract  analysis  for  that  of  intui- 
tion, we  shall  cease  to  regard  the  universe  as  a 
mechanism  which  grinds  out  results  blindly 
through  the  operation  of  those  mythical  powers 
called  laws  of  nature.  A mechanism  implies 
the  conception  of  nature  as  an  aggregate  of 
static  entities  whose  relation  to  one  another  is 
external  rather  than  organic  — a framework 
which  bears  unmistakable  evidence  of  the  trans- 
forming activity  of  the  scientific  intellect.  The 
telic  character  of  the  universe  is  beyond  ques- 
tion, though  the  purposes  in  nature  are  not  so 
clearly  anticipated  nor  so  consistently  striven  for 
as  the  older  theories  of  design  often  suggested. 

Finally,  if  we  reject  the  mosaic  view  of  con- 
sciousness presented  to  us  by  associationist 
psychology,  as  we  must  reject  it,  then  we  must 
cease  to  think  of  human  action  as  being  deter- 
mined by  forces  which  are  somehow  alien  to 
it.  The  will  is  free  in  the  only  significant  sense 
of  freedom.  It  is  of  course  not  a faculty  by 
itself,  uncoupled  from  the  rest  of  the  mental 
life,  nor  need  it  be  in  order  for  true  freedom 
to  be  realised.  True  freedom  exists  when  the 
act  is  the  expression  of  the  self  in  its  entirety. 
Such  freedom  is  of  course  in  the  beginning 
merely  ideal,  but  it  is  realised  more  and  more 
completely  as  the  self  achieves  unity  of  life  with 
the  progress  of  spiritual  culture. 


XIV 

CRITICISM  OF  BERGSON:  THE  DOC- 
TRINE OF  PURE  CHANGE 


'i 

'7 


■} 


XIV 


CEITICISM  OF  BEEGSON  : THE  DOCTEINE  OF 
PTJEE  CHAHGE 

It  would  carry  us  quite  beyond  the  limits 
of  our  task  to  undertake  a criticism  of  Berg- 
son’s philosophy  in  detail,  or  to  examine  ex- 
haustively any  one  of  his  ideas.  Let  us  single 
out,  therefore,  the  two  doctrines  which  are  un- 
questionably the  most  fundamental  and  striking 
in  his  system,  the  doctrine  of  the  static  con- 
cept, and  the  doctrine  of  pure  change.  Take 
the  last  first. 

Bergson  represents  reality  as  a process  of 
pure  change.  It  is  doubtful,  however,  whether 
the  idea  of  pure  change  is  one  which  we  can 
make  very  intelligible  to  ourselves.  That  the 
notion  is  a difficult  one  the  whole  history  of 
philosophy  proves.  The  idea  of  reality  as 
something  partially  or  wholly  permanent,  as 
somehow  substantial,  pervades  the  entire  history 
of  philosophical  speculation  from  the  earliest 
Greek  physicists  down.  In  the  first  philoso- 
phers of  Greece  whose  names  and  teachings 
have  been  preserved  to  history  we  already  meet 
119 


120 


Henri  Bergson 


the  attempt  to  explain  the  variety  presented 
by  the  physical  universe  as  somehow  due  to  the 
mutation  of  some  single  element  or  substance, 
water,  air,  fire,  and  the  like.  Empedocles, 
Democritus  and  his  followers,  the  so-called 
Greek  atomists,  explained  change  as  consisting 
in  the  altered  combinations  and  re-grouping 
of  primitively  simple  elements.  Plato  con- 
trasted the  world  of  appearance  with  the  world 
of  eternal  forms  or  ideas,  each  mundane  ap- 
pearance being  but  a sort  of  shadow  or  imper- 
fect copy  of  its  divine  original.  And  Aristotle, 
so  modern  in  many  of  his  phases,  finds  unity 
and  self-identity  in  the  plan  or  function  re- 
vealed in  the  details  of  structure  and  activity 
which  a thing  manifests.  And  so  philosophers 
and  theologians  of  the  middle  ages  with  their 
creation  and  emanation  theories,  the  modern 
philosophers  with  their  distinction  between  sub- 
stance and  attributes,  the  soul  and  its  states, 
the  thing-in-itself  and  phenomena,  reality  and 
appearance,  the  permanent  possibilities  of  sen- 
sations and  the  sensations  themselves,  matter 
and  its  properties,  the  absolute  and  its  finite 
manifestations,  all  alike  bear  witness  to  the  in- 
sistent tendency  to  posit  behind  the  fleeting  ap- 
pearance and  show  of  the  world  a background 
of  unalterable  essence.  Is  this  persistent  tend- 
ency justified,  or  is  it  possible  to  conceive  of 
nature  as  a process  of  absolute  change  without 


Criticism  of  Bergson  121 

any  background  of  permanence  at  all  as  Berg- 
son invites  us  to  do? 

Natur  hat  weder  Kern  noch  Schale; 

Alles  ist  sie  mit  einem  Male! 

The  thesis  which  I should  like  here  to  sug- 
gest and  support  is  that  the  notions  of  per- 
manence and  change  are  entirely  correlative  in 
their  significance  and  implications,  and  that  the 
movements  of  nature  always  show  difference 
within  an  underlying  identity,  and  that  pure 
change,  strictly  taken,  is  entirely  inconceivable. 

Take  even  so  Inherently  and  incessantly 
mutable  a thing  as  the  stream  of  our  conscious- 
ness. In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  changes 
going  on  within  my  consciousness  are  incessant 
and  inevitable,  I am  still  able  to  say  that  it  is 
my  consciousness  which  is  undergoing  change, 
that  it  is  I who  am  experiencing  the  various 
mutations  which  my  inner  life  suffers.  Indeed, 
as  Professor  Taylor  remarks,  it  is  just  “ be- 
cause the  self  which  changes  with  the  flux  of 
time  and  circumstances  is  still  in  some  measure 
the  same  old  self  that  we  feel  its  changes  to  be 
so  replete  with  matter  for  exultation  and 
despair.” 

It  would,  in  fact,  be  an  embarrassing  ques- 
tion to  ask  a follower  of  Bergson  whether,  and 
by  what  means,  pure  change  would  be  recognised 
as  change.  The  movement  of  a body,  for  ex- 


122 


Henri  Bergson 


ample,  can  be  recognised  only  if  viewed  on  a 
background  of  stationary  objects,  or  by  re- 
ference to  a fixed  point  from  which  or  towards 
which  the  movement  is  taking  place.  “ A mere 
succession,”  as  Professor  Taylor  says,  “ of  en- 
tirely disconnected  contents  held  together  by 
no  common  permanent  nature  persisting  in 
spite  of  the  transition  would  not  be  change  at 
all.  If  I simply  have  before  me  first  A and 
then  B,  A and  B being  absolutely  devoid  of  any 
point  of  community,  there  is  no  sense  in  saying 
that  I have  apprehended  a process  of  change.” 
And  so  with  any  instance  of  change  whatsoever. 
In  order  for  it  to  be  known  as  change  it  must 
be  viewed  on  the  background  of  something  which 
remains  identical  throughout  the  successive 
stages  or  phases  of  the  change. 

In  what,  precisely,  the  underlying  identity  in 
a given  case  of  change  consi/ts  it  is  at  first  dif- 
ficult enough  to  say.  This  is  particularly  true 
of  the  fluctuations  of  our  inner  psychical  life 
which  are  so  rapid  and  radical  as  to  have  led 
many  to  abandon  the  whole  idea  of  the  mind’s 
unity,  and  to  interpret  it  as  a mere  aggregate 
of  changing  nuances  or  phases.  Hence  the  gen- 
eral “ Entseelung  ” of  German  philosophical 
speculation  and  the  “ soulless  ” psychology 
about  which  in  England  and  America  there  has 
been  so  much  noise.  The  problem  is,  however, 
not  a hopeless  one,  and  much  has  already  been 


Criticism  of  Bergson 


123 


done  to  bring  us  within  sight  of  a fairly  satis- 
factory solution  of  it.  Let  us  merely  indicate 
one  or  two  of  the  principal  points. 

The  identity  within  the  change  has  been  held 
to  consist  either  in  the  form  of  elements  which 
remain  sensibly  constant  in  the  midst  of  their 
changing  concomitants,  or  in  the  shape  of  an 
interest  or  purpose  which  remains  identical 
throughout  the  process  of  change.  The 
various  events  constituting  the  change  are  but 
so  many  steps  or  stages  in  the  realisation  of 
an  underlying  interest  or  purpose.  The 
former  system  might  be  said  to  possess  struc- 
tural or  qualitative  unity,  the  latter  teleolog- 
ical unity,  a unity  of  persistent  interest  or  pur- 
pose. 

The  self  appears  to  have  both  these  kinds  of 
unity  within  it.  In  the  first  place,  many  of  the 
contents  of  the  mental  life  recur  — we  can 
“ mean  ” the  same  objects  by  successive 
thoughts,  that  is,  we  have  memory.  Iden- 
tically the  same  thought  does  not,  indeed,  recur ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  thought,  if  it  really 
concerns  or  intends  the  same  object,  cannot  be 
wholly  different.  The  other  kind  of  unity 
which  thought  and  the  whole  inner  life  pos- 
sesses is  the  teleological  unity  referred  to  above, 
the  unity  imparted  to  it  by  the  purposes,  ends 
or  interests  which  the  mental  life  appears  to 
be  striving  to  fulfil.  The  selective  activity  of 


124 


Henri  Bergson 


attention  along  the  mind’s  current  interests, 
and  the  processes  of  topical  or  purposively  con- 
trolled thought,  are  typical  examples  of  the 
telle  unity  of  the  inner  life  referred  to. 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that  both  these 
kinds  of  unity  are  eventually  reducible  to  a 
single  type,  the  type  of  functional  unity,  the 
unity  of  a fundamental  principle  or  law  accord- 
ing to  which  the  successive  stages  of  the  change 
give  way  to  each  other.  But  the  matter  is 
perhaps  too  technical  to  go  into  very  fully  here. 

It  is  safe  to  say,  in  any  case,  that  any  pro- 
cess of  change  will  be  found,  when  closely  ex- 
amined, to  contain  some  perduring  principle  of 
unity  or  self-identity.  The  only  cases  in  which 
change  is  indiscernible  are  (1)  where  nothing 
changes,  and  (2)  where  everything  changes. 
Indeed,  if  Bergson’s  view  of  reality  as  pure 
change  were  true,  we  should  never  know  it  to  be 
true.  For  the  “ change  ” would  not  be  re- 
cognisable as  change.  We  should  at  most  have 
a succession  of  unrelated  particulars  which 
would  affect  us  merely  as  so  many  separate 
impressions  or  shocks,  as  it  were,  but  which  we 
should  be  unable  to  bind  together  on  the  basis 
of  any  peiwasive  similarity,  or  of  any  under- 
lying  principle  or  law. 

So  far,  therefore,  from  science  and  intel- 
ligence “ drawing  the  dynamic  unity  out  of  na- 
ture as  you  draw  the  thread  out  of  a string  of 


Criticism  of  Bergson 


125 


beads,”  it  is  rather  true  that  experience  would 
fall  to  pieces,  that  reality  and  change  itself 
would  crumble  under  our  hands,  if  it  were  not 
for  the  unities  within  experience,  those  repeti- 
tive and  relational  features  which  the  intellect 
discerns  and  holds  fast  throughout  the  succes- 
sive mutations  which  so  deeply  affect  it.  Our 
criticism  may  be  summed  up  in  one  word:  If 

there  is  to  be  change,  there  must  be  things  to 
change. 

That  something  shall  persist  through  the  suc- 
cessive mutations  which  reality  undergoes  seems 
indeed  to  be  absolutely  demanded  by  other  parts 
of  Bergson’s  system.  That  change  is  never  so 
radical  as  to  involve  the  complete  destruction 
of  its  object  is,  strange  to  say,  one  of  the  most 
characteristic  ideas  of  this  advocate  of  universal 
flux.  The  doctrine  of  universal  mutation  ap- 
pears, in  fact,  as  only  one  side  of  a profound 
(and  one  fears  unpremeditated)  paradox  which 
lies  deeply  imbedded  in  the  Bergsonian  philo- 
sophy. Side  by  side  with  the  doctrine  of  uni- 
versal mutation  we  have  what  seems  to  be  the 
precise  opposite  of  it,  the  notion,  namely,  of 
universal  conservation.  The  universe  is  not 
merely  a “ conservative  sj’^stem  ” in  the  sense  of 
a mechanistic  cosmology  founded  upon  the 
principle  of  the  conservation  of  energy,  a sys- 
tem which  knows  neither  diminution  nor  gain ; 
it  is  actually  creative,  a continual  becoming  or 


126 


Henri  Bergson 


achievement,  in  which  nothing  is  ever  abandoned 
and  nothing  lost.  According  to  the  definition 
of  consciousness  as  memory,  for  example,  pres- 
ent experience  sums  up  in  itself,  drags  behind  it, 
as  it  were,  the  whole  of  the  self’s  history.  It 
is  upon  this  idea,  indeed,  that  a number  of 
Bergson’s  best-known  doctrines,  both  in  the 
philosophy  of  nature  and  in  the  philosophy  of 
mind,  such  as  the  doctrines  of  creative  evolu- 
tion, of  indeterminate  teleology  and  of  the  free- 
dom of  the  will,  are  based.  The  subjugation  of 
this  and  other  internal  difficulties  of  Bergson’s 
system  seems  still  to  belong  to  the  future. 


CRITICISM  OF  BERGSON:  THE  DOC- 
TRINE OF  THE  STATIC  CONCEPT 


'if 


'ii 


■J 


:i 


XV 


CEITICISM  OF  BERGSON  : THE  DOCTRINE 
OF  THE  STATIC  CONCEPT 

The  second  fundamental  doctrine  underlying 
Bergson’s  polemic  against  the  scientific  intel- 
lect is  the  doctrine  of  the  stationary  concept. 

Reality,  Bergson  has  argued,  is  incessantly 
wearing  and  changing,  but  the  concepts  by  which 
the  intellect  seeks  to  represent  reality  are  static 
structures,  unaffected  by  the  flight  of  change 
and  time.  Hence  Bergson’s  insistence  on  the 
inadequacy  of  scientific  knowledge  to  give  us 
insight  into  the  true  nature  of  what  is  real. 
We  were  concerned  in  the  last  section  to  throw 
doubt  upon  the  validity  of  Bergson’s  first  as- 
sertion, the  assertion  that  nature  is  pure  change. 
It  is  the  object  of  the  present  section  to  sug- 
gest that  his  other  main  doctrine,  the  doctrine 
of  the  stationary  concept,  is  at  least  equally 
doubtful. 

The  doctrine  of  the  static  concept  was  ad- 
vocated by  no  less  a psychologist  than  James, 
although  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  cite  passages 
from  his  works  which  are  entirely  irreconcilable 
with  the  idea.  “ Each  conception,”  he  wrote 

in  the  Principles  of  Psychology,  “ etemallv  re- 
129 


130 


Henei  Bergson 


mains  what  it  is,  and  never  can  become  another. 
. . . Thus,  amid  the  flux  of  opinions  and  phys- 
ical things,  the  world  of  conceptions,  or  things 
intended  to  be  thought  about,  stands  stiff  and 
immutable,  like  Plato’s  Realm  of  Ideas.”  And 
again,  in  his  Some  Problems  of  Philosophy: 
“ Particular  facts  decay  and  our  conceptions  of 
them  vary.  A concept  never  varies ; and  be- 
tween such  unvarying  terms  the  relations  must 
be  constant  and  express  eternal  verities.”  If 
this  view  is  a true  one,  then,  of  course,  concepts 
cannot  represent  the  living  movements  of 
nature.  To  understand  life  by  concepts  would 
indeed  be,  as  James  and  Bergson  maintain,  “to 
arrest  its  movement,  cutting  it  up  into  bits  as 
if  with  scissors,  and  immobilising  these  in  our 
logical  herbarium  where,  comparing  them  as 
dried  specimens,  we  can  ascertain  which  of  them 
statically  includes  or  excludes  which  other.” 
Well,  that  words  change  their  meanings,  and 
that  the  concepts  of  science  and  of  daily  life 
are  constantly  being  overhauled  and  revised  is 
one  of  the  most  familiar  of  facts.  The  classes, 
species,  laws,  hypotheses,  systems,  in  fact,  the 
whole  framework  of  science,  undergo  constant 
modifica.tion  as  discrepancies  between  the  ob- 
served facts  of  nature  and  the  conceptual  con- 
structions of  science  make  themselves  felt.  In- 
deed, the  Platonic  doctrine  of  the  independence 
of  concepts  and  their  eternal  stability  strikes 


Criticism  of  Bergson 


131 


one  as  nothing  less  than  superstitious,  and 
there  are  reasons  to  suppose  that  it  has  been 
pretty  generally  abandoned  for  a more  con- 
servative position.  The  reign  of  purely  formal 
logic  whose  concepts  and  processes  are  entirely 
independent  of  the  material  of  thought  has  been 
thoroughly  broken,  and  its  authority  hopelessly 
discredited.  But  it  is  precisely  against  the 
Platonic  theory  of  concepts,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
and  the  scholastic  exercise  of  manipulating  con- 
cepts according  to  the  formal  rules  of  logic, 
that  the  polemic  of  Bergson  and  James  is  ex- 
clusively directed. 

If  concepts  are  truly  immutable  and  eternal, 
it  is  clear  that  they  are  utterly  unable  to  re- 
present a world  in  which  change  is  such  a 
pervasive  and  deep-running  characteristic. 
But  what  if  concepts  are  corrigible  and  end- 
lessly flexible  and  thus  delicately  adaptable  to 
the  realities  to  which  they  refer.?  Thoughts 
and  meanings  are  not  stiff"  and  unchangeable; 
they  are  the  most  mobile,  sensitive  and  yielding 
things  we  know. 

Indeed,  if  there  is  any  difference  between 
sense  knowledge  and  conceptual  thought  in  this 
regard,  it  may  be  justly  urged  that  it  is  sense 
experience  which  represents  reality  as  immobile 
and  discrete.  Common  sense,  based  upon  naive 
sense  experience,  sees  celestial  bodies  as  station- 
ary and  independent  of  each  other.  Science 


132 


Henri  Bergson 


knows  them  to  be  in  constant  movement,  and 
held  together  by  energetic  relations,  the  laws  of 
gravity,  so-called,  which  penetrate  the  utter- 
most reaches  of  the  physical  universe.  It  may 
indeed  be  urged  that  it  is  the  work  of  scientific 
Intelligence  to  remove  the  apparent  heterogen- 
eity, to  overcome  the  discretions,  which  naive 
experience  presents.  This  was  in  fact  the 
fundamental  thought  of  Kant,  according  to 
vdiom  the  “ Durcheinander,”  the  natural  chaos 
of  primordial  sense  experience,  is  ordered  and 
organised  through  the  synthetic  activity  of  the 
understanding.  “ Die  Verbindung  eines  Man- 
nigfaltigen  kann  iiberhaupt  niemals  durch 
Sinne  in  uns  kommen.  . . . Alle  Verbindung  ist 
elne  Verstandeshandlung.”  The  same  view  is 
aptly  stated  by  Professor  Hibben  who  has  the 
Bergsonian  doctrine  of  the  concept  particularly 
in  mind : “ The  charge  is  made  against  con- 

ceptual thinking  that  it  cannot  portray  the 
continuous.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  peculiar 
function  of  thought  to  represent  the  continu- 
ous. Our  perceptual  intelligence  sees  things  in 
fragments:  our  conceptual  thought  integrates 
them  into  a continuous  whole.  I may  not  be 
able  to  see  a process,  but  I can  think  it.  . . . 
While  conceptual  thought  possesses  the  analyti- 
cal power  of  separating  a given  process  into  ele- 
mental parts,  into  discrete  portions  of  space,  or 
separate  instants  of  time,  it  must  not  be  over- 
looked that  it  functions  also  in  a synthetic 


Criticism  of  Bergson 


133 


capacity,  by  means  of  which  the  connecting 
lines  of  continuity  are  established  so  that  the 
mind  can  hold  together  the  elements  in  one 
undivided  whole.” 

The  pragmatic  reference  of  a concept  to  its 
perceptual  consequences,  when  we  act  upon  it, 
in  order  to  prove  its  validity,  seems  to  be  sim- 
ply another  proof  of  its  vital  connection  with 
the  perceptual  order.  Its  “ truth  ” will  be 
shown  in  its  leading.  If  it  leads  to  perceptual 
consequences  which  it  was  expected  to  lead  to, 
it  is  true;  if  it  does  not  so  lead,  its  validity  lies 
shattered.  Both  in  their  origin  and  in  their 
leading,  therefore,  the  conceptual  order  is  in- 
terrelated with  the  perceptual.  Concepts,  as 
James  says,  are  originally  distilled  from  parts 
of  percepts ; with  them  we  return  again  into  the 
flux  in  order  to  guide  our  reactions  upon  it. 

A leading  difficulty  of  the  Bergsonian  system 
is  that  the  results  of  intuition  are  incommuni- 
cable. If  the  results  of  intuition  are  to  be 
made  available  socially  they  must  first  be  trans- 
lated into  the  articulate  forms  of  intelligence. 
Thus  the  dissolution  of  Intuitive  experience 
would  seem  to  be  necessary  both  for  purposes 
of  action  and  of  communication.  The  results 
of  dumb  intuition,  in  other  words,  seem,  on 
Bergson’s  showing,  to  have  no  other  value  than 
to  satisfy  the  metaphysical  interests  and  crav- 
ings of  the  individual  knower.  If  true  know- 
ledge is  indeed  incommunicable  in  the  nature  of 


134 


Henri  Bergson 


things,  then  Bergson  himself  writes  and  reasons 
in  vain.  The  most  definitive  refutation  of  Berg- 
son’s system  would  thus  be  given  by  Bergson 
himself  in  four  volumes ! 

These  strictures  must  not,  however,  cause  us 
to  overlook  or  to  underestimate  the  great  serv- 
ices of  Bergson  to  the  cause  of  philosophy.  It 
is  always  the  tendency  of  a conceptual  system 
to  become  detached  from  the  perceptual  order 
in  which  it  originates,  and  in  which  alone  it 
finds  its  justification.  Furthermore,  it  is  imme- 
diate experience  to  which  we  must  go  for  our 
“ acquaintance  with  ” anything  whatsoever. 
Words  by  themselves  have  no  meaning.  Their 
meanings  are  validated  wholly  by  the  realities 
to  which  they  refer.  They  are  by  themselves 
mere  symbols,  and  what  they  symbolise  will  of 
course  be  forever  hidden  from  any  one  into 
whose  experience  the  realities  for  which  they 
stand  have  not  entered  immediately  and  first- 
hand. Against  the  worship  of  words  and  of 
concepts  as  metaphysical  realities  independent 
of  the  world  of  immediate  experience,  and 
against  the  mental  manipulation  of  concepts 
according  to  the  rules  of  formal  logic,  a fa- 
vourite exercise  of  scholastic  intellectualism, 
Bergson’s  system  will  forever  stand  as  a whole- 
some and  timely  corrective. 

A purely  negative  polemic  is  the  most  use- 
less of  pursuits.  I propose,  therefore,  (1)  the 
substitution  for  Bergson’s  notion  of  pure 


Criticism  of  Bergson 


135 


change  of  the  notion  of  change  within  an  un- 
derlying identity,  of  identity  realised  through 
difference;  (2)  for  the  notion  of  the  static  con- 
cept and  the  Platonic  world  of  interaporal  ideas 
I propose  the  notion  of  the  adjustable  or  cor- 
rigible concept,  a conceptual  order  subject  to 
constant  modification  and  reorganisation,  so  as 
to  fit  the  undeniably  mutable  world  of  reality 
which  it  symbolises  ; finally  (3)  for  Bergson’s  in- 
tuition, which  is  often  taken,  properly  or  im- 
properly, as  an  equivalent  of  inarticulate  feel- 
ing, I propose  Boyce’s  recent  term  “ insight,” 
meaning  by  insight  “ the  experience  of  wholes 
rather  than  fragments,”  “ the  coherent  view  of 
many  facts  in  some  sort  of  unity.” 

The  organ  of  such  insight  is  reason.  A fun- 
damental error  of  Bergson’s  is  that  he  views 
reason  as  synonymous  with  mere  analysis,  thus 
contrasting  it  with  intuition,  a non-analytical 
appreciation  of  the  homogeneous  flow  which  re- 
ality presents.  But  analysis  is  only  a prepara- 
tory step  in  reasoning.  Nor  does  the  reasoner, 
if  he  knows  his  business,  deny  the  essential  unity 
of  that  which  he  may,  for  purposes  of  better 
understanding  or  of  practical  control,  divide 
and  analyse.  If  Bergson  uses  the  term  intuition 
as  something  more  than  the  bare  awareness  of 
fact,  as  he  often  seems  to  do,  the  term  may 
turn  out  to  be  the  essential  equivalent  of  the 
term  reason  or  insight  itself.  For  reason  or  in- 
sight, too,  sees  reahty  in  its  Avholeness,  and  that 


136 


Henri  Bergson 


is  why  the  scientist  and  the  philosopher  know 
the  world  as  it  is  more  trilly  and  adequately 
than  does  the  man  in  the  street.^  The  fact  is 
that  analysis  and  intuition  exist  on  every  plane 
of  cognitive  apprehension.  The  man  in  the 
street  does  not  refrain  from  analysis,  only  the 
analysis  here  is  motived  by  very  immediate  and 
practical  ends.  Intuition,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  exercised  on  the  highest  planes  of  the  ra- 
tional intelligence,  if  we  mean  by  intuition  an 
insight  into  the  true  wholeness  of  things.  Rea- 
son is  synopsis,  and  the  synoptic  grasp  will  be 
the  more  adequate  and  penetrating  the  more 
analysis  has  done  her  perfect  work.  Reason- 
able experience,  as  Royce  insists,  can  of  course 
not  dispense  with  “ instinct,  feeling,  faith  and 
the  inarticulate  intuitions.  These  are  the  basis 
upon  which  the  genuine  work  of  reason,  the 
wider  view  of  life,  must  be  carried  toward  its 
fulfillment.  For  whoever  is  to  comprehend  the 
unities  of  life  must  first  live.” 

1 Immediacy  or  concreteness  of  experience  “ may  be 
due,  as  in  the  case  of  mere  uninterpreted  sensation,  to 
the  absence  of  reflective  analysis  of  the  given  into  its 
constituent  aspects  or  elements.  But  it  may  also  be 
due  ...  to  the  fusion  at  a higher  level  into  a single 
directly  apprehended  whole  of  results  originally  won  by 
the  process  of  abstraction  and  reflection.  There  is  an 
immediacy  of  experience  which  is  below  mediate  re- 
flective knowledge,  but  there  is  also  a higher  immediacy 
which  is  above  it.”  Taylor,  Elements  of  Metaphysics, 
p.  32. 


XVI 

BERGSON  AND  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 
RELIGION  — THE  VALUE  OF  LIFE 


i 

j 


XVI 


BERGSON  AND  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OP  RELIGION 

THE  VALUE  OF  LIFE 

A QUESTION  of  deep  interest  to  many  persons 
is  that  of  the  bearing  of  any  new  or  original 
system  of  philosophy  like  Bergson’s  upon  cur- 
rent religious  interests  and  ideas.  A few  words 
upon  this  point,  therefore,  at  the  end  of  our 
considerations,  may  not  come  amiss. 

It  is  very  clear  that  if  we  are  to  consider 
this  question  at  all  intelligently  or  profitably  we 
must  first  come  to  some  sort  of  understanding 
as  to  just  what  we  shall  mean  by  religion.  It 
is  obvious,  for  example,  that  the  question  of  the 
bearing  of  Bergson’s  teachings  upon  religion 
would  have  to  be  answered  very  differently  in 
case  we  should  identify  religion  with  the  dog- 
mas of  traditional  theology,  and  in  case  we 
should  take  a freer  view  of  its  nature  and  mean- 
ing. The  effect  of  Bergson’s  philosophy  upon 
the  traditional  dogmas  of  theology  might  be  al- 
most wholly  negative  (unless.  Indeed,  these  dog- 
mas were  interpreted  very  freely  and  symbol- 
ically), while  it  might  strongly  corroborate  and 
139 


140  Henri  Bergson 

support  a religion  defined  more  generously  and 
vitally. 

The  view  of  religion  which  we  shall  adopt  for 
the  present  purpose  is  that  it  is  based  upon  the 
belief  in  the  permanence  of  goodness,  upon  the 
belief  that  the  universe  is  so  constituted  as  ever 
to  prefer  the  good  and  to  destroy  the  evil. 
Defined  very  shortly,  we  might  say  (using  words 
of  Secretan)  that  religion  is  the  belief  that  per- 
fection is  eternal,  or,  in  words  of  my  own  (of 
which  I am  fond,  in  spite  of  their  anthropo- 
morphic associations),  it  is  the  belief  in  love. 

Whether  such  a belief  is  possible  for  us  is  a 
question,  it  seems  plain,  which  can  be  settled 
partly  upon  the  basis  of  factual  or  empirical 
evidence,  in  spite  of  the  suggestion  of  James 
and  others  that  the  question,  if  it  is  to  be  set- 
tled favourably  to  religion,  must  be  removed 
out  of  the  realm  of  factual  demonstration  to 
the  realm  of  faith  and  practical  endeavour. 
James’  wholesale  condemnation  of  the  empirical 
order  as  morally  ambiguous  or  even  bad  seems 
to  me,  indeed,  somewhat  overwrought  and  harsh. 
“ Every  phenomenon  that  we  would  praise 
there,”  he  writes,  “ exists  cheek  by  jowl  with 
some  contrary  phenomenon  that  cancels  all  its 
religious  effect  upon  the  mind.  Beauty  and 
hideousness,  love  and  cruelty,  life  and  death  keep 
house  together  in  indissoluble  partnership ; and 


The  Value  of  Life 


141 


gradually  there  steals  over  us,  instead  of  the  old 
warm  notion  of  a man-loving  deity,  that  of  an 
awful  power  that  neither  hates  nor  loves,  but 
rolls  all  things  together  meaninglessly  to  a com- 
mon doom.”  I do  not  wish  here  to  enter  upon 
the  question  of  the  comparative  amounts  of  good 
and  evil  in  the  world,  the  question  of  optimism 
and  pessimism,  viewed  from  a merely  historical 
or  descriptive  point  of  view.  I have  presented 
the  case  for  religion,  i.  e.,  for  the  belief  in  the 
preponderance  of  good,  somewhat  fully  in  my 
recent  book,  The  Problem  of  Religion,  where 
the  reader  will  find  my  opinions  and  arguments, 
if  he  should  care  for  them.  It  is  of  course 
clear,  and  it  may  be  granted  without  further 
discussion,  that  the  belief  in  the  present  pre- 
ponderance or  the  eventual  triumph  of  good, 
while  capable  of  much  empirical  support,  is  in 
the  nature  of  the  case  not  susceptible  of  com- 
plete empirical  confirmation,  which  must  for- 
ever remain  a philosophical  aspiration  rather 
than  a definite  achievement. 

It  is  clear,  however,  and  may  readily  be  con- 
ceded, that  the  question  of  primary  importance 
for  religion  is  not  whether  the  good  is  actually 
realised,  but  whether  it  is  realisable  in  a world 
like  this ; whether  the  progressive  victory  of 
good  over  evil,  of  reasonableness  and  aspiration 
over  unreasonableness  and  fate  and  chance,  is 


142 


Henri  Bergson 


something  for  which,  in  the  actual  constitution 
of  the  world,  we  may  fairly  hope  for  and  work 
for. 

Moreover,  and  particularly,  no  moral  evalua- 
tion of  the  universe  can  be  regarded  as  at  all 
adequate  which  leaves  out  of  account  man’s 
active  nature,  which  reckons  up  the  chances  of 
good  and  ill  from  the  consideration  of  the  phys- 
ical forces,  merely,  which  the  world  represents, 
leaving  out  of  account  the  efficacy  of  human 
aspiration,  the  active  energy  of  human  agents. 
James  was  right  when  he  asserted  that  for  any 
philosophy  to  succeed  it  must  avoid  two  funda- 
mental defects : it  must  not  in  its  ultimate  prin- 
ciple baffle  and  disappoint  our  most  cherished 
powers,  and,  second,  it  must  not  define  the  world 
in  such  a way  as  to  give  our  active  powers  no 
object  whatever  to  press  against.  The  two 
kinds  of  existence,  in  other  words,  which  would 
be  unendurable  are  that  in  which  all  problems 
are  hopeless  and  aU  striving  therefore  vain, 
and  that  in  which  all  problems  are  already 
solved.  The  real  foe  of  religion,  or  of  any 
hopeful  interpretation  of  reality,  is  therefore 
not  naturalism,  as  is  so  often  asserted,  but  ab- 
solutism in  every  form,  whether  absolutism  be 
of  the  naturalistic  and  mechanical  type  con- 
templated by  physical  science,  or  of  the  logical 
or  teleological  type  of  absolute  idealism.  Both 
systems  leave  man  out  of  account ; both  deny 


The  Value  of  Life 


143 


what  he  feels  to  be  the  most  inviolable  part  of 
his  nature,  his  activity  in  the  pursuit  of  his 
ends,  the  freedom  and  efficacy  of  his  own  life. 
If  the  question  is  asked,  then,  what,  in  a word, 
the  constitution  of  the  world  would  be  which  the 
moral  nature  of  man  can  approve,  in  which 
trust  and  aspiration  are  appropriate  moods, 
rather  than  fear  and  despair,  the  answer  would 
be  that  it  must  be  a world  in  which  human  ends 
can  be  truly  achieved,  though  not  without  ef- 
fort, struggle  and  perhaps  much  pain. 

We  are  now  fairly  in  position  to  estimate  the 
bearing  of  Bergson’s  system  upon  any  world- 
view which  can  be  called  religious.  The  three 
salient  doctrines  of  Bergson’s  which  have  rele- 
vancy in  the  present  connection  are  the  doc- 
trines of  creative  evolution,  of  indeterminate 
teleology,  and  of  human  freedom.  They  will 
be  seen,  when  they  are  examined  from  our  pres- 
ent point  of  view,  to  be  broadly  in  keeping  with 
a view  of  the  world  upon  which,  as  we  have  held, 
religion  depends.  A few  words  upon  each 
point  will  perhaps  make  the  matter  clear. 

(1)  The  view  of  evolution  as  creative  pro- 
vides for  novelty  in  the  world,  and  for  the  ap- 
pearance of  features,  therefore,  which,  though 
not  actually  existent,  are  ideally  demanded.  It 
denies  mechanistic  naturalism  which  views  na- 
ture as  a closed  system  whose  changes  are  due, 
not  to  the  efficacy  of  ideals  and  intelligent  en- 


144 


Henri  Bergson 


deavour,  but  to  the  shifting  and  reshifting  of 
forces  in  accordance  with  mechanical  forces 
working  blindly.  Evolution,  according  to 
Bergson,  is  not  a mere  rethreshing  of  old  straw, 
an  eternal  redistribution  of  matter  and  energy. 
Evolution,  rather,  is  elaboration,  production,  a 
process  in  which  fresh  items  of  reality  spring 
constantly  into  existence.  The  theological  doc- 
trine of  creation  is  not  only  unassailable,  it  ex- 
presses the  most  central  truth  about  the  world 
which  it  is  possible  to  utter.  Traditional  the- 
ology errs  only  in  treating  the  act  of  creation 
as  singular  and  final,  and  in  referring  it  back  to 
some  mythical  point  in  the  past.  Creation  is 
not  confined  to  the  past:  it  is  taking  place  con- 
tinually. 

That  science  should  not  recognise  the  cre- 
ative and  spontaneous  aspects  of  evolution,  but 
should  interpret  it  in  purely  mechanical  terms, 
is  entirely  natural  in  view  of  the  object  which 
science  has  set  for  itself.  If  there  is  genuine 
spontaneity  in  the  world,  science,  whose  ideal  is 
calculation  and  prediction,  must  ignore  it,  just 
as  psychology  must  ignore  free  will,  if  such  a 
thing  indeed  exists.  We  are  here  merely  re- 
stating, from  a somewhat  different  point  of 
view,  the  central  point  of  Bergson’s  whole  criti- 
cism of  science,  a criticism  which  will  doubtless 
stand  the  test  of  utmost  scrutiny.  The  only 
true  science,  according  to  Bergson,  would  be 


The  Value  of  Life 


145 


history,  the  science  which  deals  with  the  con- 
crete and  the  individual,  rather  than  the  ab- 
stract and  conceptual.  The  unique  and  the 
individual,  just  because  it  is  unique  and  indi- 
vidual, forever  eludes  the  notional  grasp. 

(2)  But  if  Bergson’s  system  is  unfriendly 
to  absolute  creation  theories,  it  is  equally  un- 
friendly to  all  forms  of  absolute  teleology.  If 
there  is  no  absolute  creation,  in  the  sense  of 
traditional  theology,  there  is  also  no  absolute 
predestination.  The  course  of  evolution  is  not 
mapped  out,  as  it  were,  beforehand,  so  that  no 
one,  not  even  God,  “ can  see  the  end  from  the 
beginning.”  The  life  of  God  himself  lies  be- 
fore him  largely  in  the  fom  of  an  unrealised 
possibility,  like  the  life  of  the  youth  whose  vast 
and  ill-defined  aspirations  and  impulses  are 
symptomatic  of  certain  energies  and  tendencies, 
without,  however,  affording  any  clear  hint  or 
sign  of  the  final  outcome  of  the  great  adventure 
of  life  which  he  confronts. 

Prophecy  is  therefore  not  so  much  a form  of 
prognostication  as  a form  of  poetry.  Its  mes- 
sage is  not  primarily  oracular,  but  normative 
and  hortative.  Its  fictive  utterances  stir  the 
imagination  and  the  will,  and  thus  bring  events 
about  through  the  release  of  human  energies, 
rather  than  foretell,  merely,  a consummation 
which  nature,  left  to  herself,  would  have 
achieved. 


146 


Henri  Bergson 


(3)  The  whole  of  Bergson’s  philosophy,  like 
the  whole  philosophy  of  religion,  is  thus  seen  to 
centre  in  freedom.  The  universe  is  a product 
of  free  creation  simply  because  it  is  not  force 
or  mechanism,  but  freedom  and  life.  The  op- 
eration of  freedom  we  witness  first-hand  in  man, 
where  the  will  liberates  itself  from  the  rule  of 
matter  and  shapes  life  in  conformity  with  its 
own  ends  and  goals. 

That  such  freedom  is  not  unlimited  and  does 
not  operate  capriciously  and  in  independence 
of  the  order  of  nature  is  a point  which  cannot 
be  emphasised  too  strongly.  The  chai’women, 
in  Sir  Oliver  Lodge’s  illustration,  who  break 
into  the  scientist’s  laboratory  and  disturb  his 
scientific  results,  upset  no  laws  of  nature  in  do- 
ing so.  They  disturb  the  results  merely  by  dis- 
arranging the  conditions  which  the  scientist  has 
carefully  prepared.  I can,  by  merely  pressing 
a lever,  switch  a locomotive  from  one  track  to 
another,  according  to  my  will.  I can  even  de- 
rail it  entirely  by  placing  an  obstacle  upon  the 
track.  But  what  I cannot  do  is  to  keep  it  from 
moving  along  the  lines  of  least  resistance. 
Thus,  while  I can  side-track  the  engine,  or  even 
upset  it,  I cannot  deviate  or  upset  the  laws  of 
nature.  It  is  of  course  clear  on  a verjr  little 
thought  that  the  only  condition  on  which  I can 
carry  out  the  purposes  of  my  will  is  by  the  use 
of  agents,  by  relying  upon  the  uniformity  of 


The  Value  of  Life 


147 


nature  without  which  all  ends  would  become  un- 
realisable,  all  purposes  unfulfilled,  and  life  it- 
self become  a sheer  impossibility.  Indeed,  the 
more  one  reflects  on  the  matter  the  clearer  it 
becomes  that  the  constancy  of  nature  is  the  one 
most  important  argument  for  theism  which  can 
be  produced.  That  the  ground  is  firm  under 
our  feet,  that  water  slakes  and  fire  burns,  that 
bodies  gravitate,  that  the  sun  rises  and  sets  and 
the  seasons  recur  — that  nature,  in  short,  is 
without  shadow  or  turning  — this  is  the  one 
condition  on  which  life  can  be  good. 

It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  emphasise 
this  point  here  because  religion  has  often  been 
thought  to  depend  for  its  “ proof  ” upon  the 
interruption  of  the  order  of  nature,  upon  mira- 
cles. The  doctrine  of  miracles  has  often,  even 
quite  recently,  been  asserted  to  stand  or  fall 
with  the  doctrine  of  free  will.  Nature,  it  is 
asserted,  cannot  be  a closed  system  of  physical 
forces  operating  according  to  uniform  laws, 
and  the  will  be  at  the  same  time  free.  Either 
nature  is  not  a closed  system  or  free  will  is  a 
miracle.  “ You  cannot  consistently  hold,”  one 
writer  says,  “ that  psychical  miracles  are  possi- 
ble and  hold  that  physical  miracles  are  impossi- 
ble.” Well,  one  would  likely  not  gain  much 
reputation  for  logic  and  still  less  for  common 
sense  if  one  were  to  argue  that  he  could  by  an 
act  of  volition  raise  his  arm,  and  that  therefore 


148 


Henri  Bergson 


he  could  by  an  act  of  volition  raise  the  dead. 
But  this  is  precisely  what  the  argument  above 
would  come  to.  Perhaps  the  best  way  to  deal 
with  a logician  of  this  type  would  be  to  Invite 
him  to  test  the  quality  of  his  logic  by  actually 
trying  his  power  in  the  two  directions.  He 
might  thus  learn  once  for  all  the  truth  of  Emer- 
son’s great  teaching : “ There  is  no  chance  or 

anarchy  in  the  universe ; all  is  law  and  grada- 
tion.” 

It  is  a fact  frequently  observed  that  gains 
in  this  world  are  seldom  made  without  corre- 
sponding risks  and  losses,  and,  particularly, 
that  the  truth  can  never  be  taught  without  dan- 
ger of  misconception  and  misinterpretation. 
A brilliant  instance  of  the  latter  fact  was  the 
late  William  James  who  suggested  that  the  sci- 
entific-academic mind  shows  an  extraordinary 
slowness  in  acknowledging  “ facts  to  exist  which 
present  themselves  as  wild  facts,  with  no  stall 
or  pigeon  hole,”  and  was  forthwith  hailed  as 
leader  by  every  form  of  mysticism  and  occult- 
ism. The  magazines  of  faith  (never  very  in- 
active) were  lighted  in  numberless  breasts  of  men 
and  women,  and  the  floodgates  were  thrown  wide 
for  “ spiritualists,”  faith  healers,  telepathists 
and  mystery  mongers  of  every  class  and  name. 
Bergson  is  at  the  present  time  in  danger  of  suf- 
fering the  same  evil  fate.  Doctrinaires  as 
widely  apart  as  syndicalists,  socialists  and  an- 


The  Value  of  Life 


149 


archists  have  claimed  him  for  their  leader.  The 
forces  (always  with  us  in  disquieting  numbers) 
arrayed  against  the  existing  social  order  seem 
to  have  derived  a peculiar  comfort  from  the 
Bergsonian  writings.  The  whole  tendency  is 
vividly  reminiscent  of  the  Rousseauan  “ back 
to  nature  ” movement  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. Nature  is  distinctionless,  streaming;  the 
differentiation  and  organisation  which  it  shows 
are  a mere  human  artifice,  and  hence  imperfect. 
God  made  the  country  and  man  made  the  town ; 
whence  it  follows  that  existent  society  is  an  evil 
which  ought  to  be  resisted.  Of  such  and  simi- 
lar unprofitable  aberrations  the  newspapers  and 
magazines  are  now  full. 

From  the  other  side  comes  traditional  theo- 
logy and  finds  in  Bergson’s  doctrines  the  war- 
rant for  a whole  array  of  doctrines  which,  to 
say  the  least,  should  not  be  drawn  from  the  po- 
sition of  obscurity  to  which  the  progress  of 
time  has  assigned  them  without  being  subjected 
to  very  complete  revision,  “ miracles  ” (I  quote 
from  an  influential  religious  newspaper)  “ the 
fall,  sin,  revelation,  redemption.”  These  an- 
cient doctrines  doubtless  have  profound  signifi- 
cance if  it  can  be  freed  from  the  accumulation 
of  theological  verbiage  which  weights  it  down 
and  hides  it  from  view.  If  Bergsonism  will  give 
us  a truly  modern  theology  it  will  confer  a great 
Intellectual  and  spiritual  benefit ; but  a new  the- 


150 


Henri  Bergson 


ology  which  shall  be  really  abreast  with  modern 
knowledge  and  sentiment  can  be  gained  only,  I 
am  persuaded,  by  going  forward,  not  backward, 
to  the  old  conceptions  and  distinctions. 

What  is  one  man’s  meat  is  another’s  poison. 
Doubtless,  what  scientists  need  is  to  be  reminded 
of  the  limitation  of  mere  analysis  and  abstract 
intellection,  and  to  practise  intuition  and  in- 
sight. What  occultists  and  dreamers  need  is 
“ that  the  northwest  wind  of  science  should  get 
into  them  and  blow  their  sickliness  and  barbar- 
ism away.”  And  what  all  good  men  and  women 
need  is  to  be  freed  from  misgivings  and  fear,  and 
to  be  fortified  in  their  better  resolutions,  so  as 
to  fit  them  for  the  highest  task  of  which  a man 
is  capable,  the  task,  namely,  of  sustaining  and 
furthering  the  interests  of  right  and  of  truth, 
and  of  making  the  gift  of  life  one  which  shall 
be  increasingly  desirable  to  those  who  have  been 
destined  to  share  in  it.  To  these  ends,  we  may 
feel  sure,  no  one  would  be  more  anxious  to  con- 
tribute than  Bergson  himself. 


XVII 

BERGSON  AND  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 
RELIGION  — THE  PROBLEM 
OF  DEATH 


\ 


XVII 


BERGSON  AND  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OP  RELIGION  

THE  PROBLEM  OP  DEATH 

The  central  problem  of  philosophy,  and  par- 
ticularly of  the  philosophy  of  religion,  whose 
main  interest  it  is  to  appraise  the  meaning  of 
reality  when  regarded  in  relation  to  human  in- 
terests and  aspirations,  has  often  been  said  to 
be  the  problem  of  death.  Plato,  indeed,  de- 
fined philosophy  as  a meditation  on  death,  and 
the  problem  of  death  has  remained,  along  with 
that  of  God  and  of  freedom,  one  of  the  stand- 
ard problems  of  which  philosophy,  according 
to  a tacit  but  wide-spread  demand,  must  give 
some  accounting.  Nor  is  formal  philosoph}^ 
alone  occupied  with  this  problem:  for  death  is 
so  sensational  and  universal  a phenomenon,  and 
it  so  often  comes  as  the  violent  interrupter  of 
our  work  and  our  hopes,  that  it  forces  itself 
upon  the  attention  of  even  the  most  heedless 
and  stoical,  and  thus  becomes  one  of  the  prin- 
cipal topics  of  popular  reflection  and  surmise, 
as  the  most  signal  illustration  of  that  cru- 
elty of  impermanence  which  pervades  nature 
153 


154 


Henri  Bergson 


throughout.  “ Tempora  mutantur,  nos  et 
mutamur  in  illis.” 

Now  it  would  be  natural  to  suppose  that  a 
philosophy  which  raises  the  principle  of  life 
into  a central  principle  of  all  reality  and  ex- 
istence would  have  some  clear  word  upon  the 
vexed  question  of  death  and  a future  existence. 
Nevertheless,  Bergson  has  singularly  little  to 
say  upon  the  question,  and  the  few  passages 
which  bear  directly  upon  it  are  either  so  ob- 
viously rhetorical  or  else  so  cautious  and  tenta- 
tive in  their  tone  as  to  leave  the  reader  entirely 
in  doubt  as  to  what  Bergson’s  views  of  the  ex- 
istence and  the  significance  of  death  really  are. 
It  is  not  very  difficult,  however,  although  it  has, 
I believe,  not  often  been  done,  to  trace  out  the 
implications  of  Bergson’s  expressed  metaphys- 
ical doctrines  with  a view  to  seeing  what  this 
“ metaphysician  of  the  life  force  ” has  to  teach 
us  conceming  the  final  destiny  of  life  — that 
principle  about  the  nature  and  activities  of 
which  he  has  more  to  say  than  about  any  other 
one  thing. 

The  question  of  future  life  is  a very  am- 
biguous one,  and  we  cannot  hope  to  deal  very 
successfully  with  the  bearing  of  Bergson’s  phi- 
losophy on  the  question  until  this  ambiguity  is 
somewhat  cleared  up  by  making  a few  very  ele- 
mentary distinctions.  It  plainly  contains  a 
number  of  distinguishable  questions  which  admit 


The  Problem  of  Death  155 


of  being  treated  separately.  Only  two  of  these 
need  concern  us  here. 

A distinction  must  be  made,  in  the  first  place, 
between  the  survival  of  life  in  some  form  or 
other,  and  the  survival  of  the  specified  or  in- 
dividuated forms  of  life  which  we  call  individuals 
or  persons,  in  other  words,  between  the  survival 
of  life  as  such,  and  individual  immortality. 
Second,  we  must  distinguish  between  the  tem- 
porary survival  of  life  (either  general  or  in- 
dividual) and  the  eternity  of  life,  or  iramoi'tality 
in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word.  It  is  easy  to 
see  that  the  two  kinds  of  survival  are  very  dif- 
ferent, and  that  either  one  is  an  antecedent 
possibility.^  The  various  possibilities,  then,  to 
enumerate  them  in  full,  are  (1)  that  life  in 
some  form  will  temporarily  survive  the  death  of 
any  living  individual;  (2)  that  life  in  some 
form  is  eternal;  (3)  that  the  individual  is  de- 
stroyed at  death;  (4)  that  the  individual  sur- 
vives death  for  a time;  (5)  that  the  individual 
is  immortal.  The  divisions  are  of  course  not 
mutually  exclusive,  the  latter  ones  involving 

1 It  is  the  failure  to  seize  these  simple  distinctions 
which  renders  much  of  the  recent  literature  on  the  im- 
plications of  Bergson’s  philosophy  for  the  problems  of 
religion  and  of  life  so  utterly  valueless.  Cf.,  for  ex- 
ample, the  article,  Some  Implications  of  Bergson’s 
Philosophy,  in  the  North  American  Review  for  March, 
1914.  There  are  doubtless  other  pieces  which  are  still 
more  sleazy  and  uncritical  than  this  one,  but  I have  not 
read  them. 


156 


Henri  Bergson 


the  former.  The  character  of  Bergson’s  sys- 
tem makes  it  especially  important  to  keep  these 
distinctions  clearly  in  mind ; for  while  even  the 
eternal  survival  of  life  in  some  form  may  be 
asserted  with  considerable  assurance,  the  sur- 
vival of  the  individual  would  seem  to  be  highly 
problematic,  sometliing,  in  any  case,  the  pos- 
sibility of  which  would  have  to  be  ascertained 
by  a number  of  special  considerations  which 
have  perhaps  not  been  fully  worked  out  even 
by  Bergson  himself.  And  the  matter  is  doubt- 
less of  first-rate  importance  for  the  question 
which  according  to  McTaggart  is  the  funda- 
mental question  of  any  philosophy  of  religion; 
Is  the  world  good  on  the  whole  ? The  mortality 
of  the  individual,  for  example,  might  be  quite 
consistent  with  the  goodness  of  the  universe  on 
the  whole,  if  only  other  lives  survive,  and  hu- 
man ideals,  in  James’  fine  phrase,  come  else- 
where to  fruition.  This  seems  to  have  been  in 
the  mind  of  Marcus  Aurelius  when  he  reminds 
us  that  no  matter  how  long  a man  might  live, 
he  could  lose  no  other  life  than  his  own.  The 
universe,  that  is,  would  still  contain  other  lives, 
and  that  is  enough. 

The  eternity  of  life  in  some  form  seems  to 
follow  directly  from  the  somewhat  dazzling 
Bergsonian  doctrine  that  the  sole  reality  is 
“ immediacy,”  that  reality,  that  is,  is  to  be 
found  in  the  very  texture  of  immediate  experi- 


The  Problem  of  Death  157 


ence  itself,  considered  as  independent  of  a so- 
called  world  of  “ objects.”  If  the  world  is  a 
feeling  it  must  be  felt  to  exist.  “ Esse  est 
percipi.”  So  long  as  anything  at  all  exists, 
so  long  consciousness,  and  hence  life,  must  exist 
too.  The  battle  of  life  would  thus  seem  to  be 
won  without  much  resistance,  life’s  enemy  hav- 
ing itself  no  true  existence  and  hence  no  power 
to  haiTU. 

As  a God  self-slain  on  his  own  strange  altar. 

Death  lies  dead; 

so  that  the  determined  charge  of  hfe  upon  its 
ancient  enemy  matter  as  pictured  in  the  rather 
grotesque  flight  of  rhetoric  at  the  end  of  the 
third  chapter  of  Creative  Evolution  would  seem 
to  be  little  more  than  a gratuitous  display  of 
military  effort,  calculated  to  impress  the  popu- 
lace.^ 

1 “ As  the  smallest  grain  of  dust  is  bound  up  with  our 
entire  solar  system,  drawn  along  with  it  in  that  un- 
divided movement  of  descent  which  is  materiality  itself, 
so  all  organized  beings,  from  the  humblest  to  the  high- 
est, from  the  first  origins  of  life  to  the  time  in  which 
we  are,  and  in  all  places  as  in  all  times,  do  but  evidence 
a single  impulsion,  the  inverse  of  the  movement  of 
matter,  and  in  itself  indivisible.  All  the  living  hold 
together,  and  all  yield  to  the  same  tremendous  push. 
The  animal  takes  its  stand  on  the  plant,  man  bestrides 
animality,  and  the  whole  of  humanity,  in  space  and  in 
time,  is  one  immense  army  galloping  beside  and  before 
and  behind  each  of  us  in  an  overwhelming  charge  able 
to  beat  down  every  resistance  and  clear  the  most  formi- 
dable obstacles,  perhaps  even  death.” 


158 


Henri  Bergson 


Still,  the  references  in  this  oft-quoted  pas- 
sage to  the  “ undivided  movement  of  descent 
which  is  materiality  itself,”  and  to  the  contrary 
impulsion  of  life,  “ the  inverse  of  the  movement 
of  matter,”  are  full  of  ominous  significance,  re- 
minding us,  as  they  do,  of  another  Bergsonian 
doctrine,  the  doctrine  of  the  equal  existence  of 
two  principles,  life  and  matter,  which  seems  to 
be  a complete  retraction  of  the  monistic  ideal- 
ism which  asserted  consciousness  to  be  the  sole 
reality.  This  dualistic  aspect  of  Bergson’s  sys- 
tem is  indeed  one  of  its  most  striking  and  char- 
acteristic features,  and  we  have  had  occasion  to 
refer  to  it  more  than  once  in  our  previous  dis- 
cussions. A large  part  of  the  popularity  of 
Bergson’s  system  (the  love  of  conflict  is  age- 
old  and  ineradicable  in  the  human  breast)  is 
doubtless  due  to  this  dramatic  competition,  this 
endless  “ Wechselspiel  von  Hemraen  und  von 
Streben,”  between  the  two  opposing  principles 
of  reality,  life  and  its  ancient  enemy,  matter, 
which  the  Bergsonian  philosophy  teaches.  Life 
appears  as  the  hero,  matter  as  a sort  of  heavy 
villain  in  this  universal  and  determined  conflict. 
Life  is  ever  becoming  entangled,  ever  extricating 
itself ; flanking,  penetrating,  retreating,  again 
moving  forward,  life  ever  outwitting,  with  an 
infinitely  wise  art,  its  inert  and  intractable  foe, 
brute  necessity,  in  the  shape  of  matter  and 
mechanism. 


The  Problem  of  Death  159 


Nevertheless,  this  dualism  need  perhaps  not 
trouble  us  unduly,  as  it  seems  after  all  to  be 
merely  an  aspect  of  the  world’s  appearance, 
and  not  to  represent  it  as  it  really  is.  The 
reader  will  remember  (a  memory,  even  if  it  is 
not  an  infallible  Bergsonian  memory,  is  at  times 
a highly  inconvenient  thing)  that  matter  is 
merely  a fiction  of  the  scientific  intelligence, 
invented  to  facilitate  action,  and  has,  therefore, 
after  all,  no  genuine  existence.  Besides,  if 
matter  (or  the  fiction  of  matter)  is  really  in- 
strumental to  action  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  it 
could  be  obstructive  of  action,  an  “ inverse 
movement  ” which  tends  to  render  nugatory 
the  efforts  which  life  puts  forth.  As  Mr. 
Santayana  aptly  remarks : “ If  matter  were 

merely  the  periphery  which  life  draws  around 
itself,  in  order  to  be  a definite  life,  matter  could 
never  abolish  any  life ; as  the  ring  of  a circus 
or  the  sand  of  the  arena  can  never  abolish  the 
show  for  which  they  have  been  prepared.  Life 
would  then  be  fed  and  defined  by  matter,  as  an 
artist  is  served  by  the  matter  he  needs  to  carr}" 
on  his  art.”  In  any  case,  if  the  fiction  of 
matter  were  created  by  life  merely  to  facilitate 
action,  it  could,  one  would  suppose,  be  again 
withdrawn  by  life  as  soon  as  it  proved  to  be 
really  obstructive  of  the  movement  of  life,  in- 
stead of  serving  and  furthering  it. 

The  whole  contrast  between  the  two  forces, 


160 


Henei  Beegson 


life  and  matter,  is  indeed  only  an  illustration  of 
Bergson’s  incurable  addiction  to  dichotomy,  and 
to  the  reification  of  concepts,  the  erection  of 
them  into  entities  or  even  powers  which  is,  ac- 
cording to  Bergson’s  standing  criticism,  one  of 
the  bosom  vices  of  “ intellectualism.”  Berg- 
son’s strong  pictorial  imagination,  indeed,  con- 
stantly leads  him  to  the  use  of  language  which 
is  often  doubtless  too  crassly  spatial  for  even 
the  most  confirmed  of  intellectualists.  So  life 
moves  up  and  matter  down,  and  the  two  en- 
deavour to  overcome  and  destroy  each  other. 
But,  strictly  speaking,  there  is  no  matter  and 
no  movement  and  no  up  nor  down.  Besides,  in 
a reality  with  a universal  memory  the  part 
“ destroyed  ” would  still  persist  to  haunt  its 
destroyer;  nay,  its  inherent  life  and  energy 
would  become  the  very  condition  of  that  crea- 
tivity which  is  of  all  nature’s  traits  the  most 
interesting  and  significant.  Universal  animism 
and  the  ceaseless  antagonism  of  hfe  and  matter ; 
radical  becoming  and  eternal  conservation ; 
matter  a fiction  and  matter  a force ; an  uncom- 
promising nominalism  and  an  idealism  as  real 
and  as  influential  as  that  of  Plato  or  Aristotle ; 
the  employment  of  sharp  analysis  and  an  in- 
comparable finesse  of  dialectic  to  prove  the  fu- 
tility of  all  analysis  and  the  uselessness  of  all 
dialectic:  these  are  only  some  of  the  internal 


The  Peoblem  of  Death  161 


contradictions  and  paradoxes  which  (if  intel- 
lectual consistency  has  not  entirely  ceased  to 
be  a virtue)  would  seem  to  require  a somewhat 
more  sustained  effort  of  intuition,  or  else  of 
so'me  other  form  of  mental  operation,  than  they 
have  so  far  received  at  the  hands  of  their  au- 
thor. 

The  aiKwer,  then,  to  the  question  as  to  the 
ultimate  survival  of  life  would  seem  to  depend 
largely  upon  the  question  as  to  what  part  of 
Bergson’s  system  is  taken  as  the  more  funda- 
mental and  characteristic,  the  spiritual  monism 
implied  in  the  identification  of  reality  with  ex- 
perience, immediate  or  other,  or  the  dualism 
of  life  and  matter,  with  their  unceasing  conflict. 
If  we  decide,  as  I think  we  are  bound  to  do,  in 
favour  of  the  former  alternative,  it  is  possible 
to  view  the  dualism  in  Bergson’s  system  as 
merely  an  accommodation  to  popular  thought 
and  to  science,  as  a failure  on  the  part  of  Berg- 
son (always  a somewhat  pardonable  one  in  a 
“ new  ” philosopher)  to  abandon  wholly  the  ter- 
minology of  the  modes  of  thought  which  he  is 
criticising.  It  is  well  to  remind  ourselves, 
meanwhile,  that,  even  if  we  adopt  the  less  favour- 
able dualistic  interpretation,  the  chances  of  life’s 
survival  are  only  lessened,  not  forfeited.  Al- 
though the  issue  of  the  conflict  between  life  and 
mechanism  may  be  doubtful  and  long  delayed. 


1G2 


Henri  Bergson 


life  may  still  throw  the  last  stone,  and  even- 
tually win  its  freedom  from  the  tyranny  of 
death  and  of  fate. 

When  we  pass  to  the  question  of  the  survival 
of  individual  forms  of  life,  to  the  question  of 
“ individual  immortality,”  our  problem  seems  to 
become  somewhat  less  difficult.  There  are  two 
lines  of  argument  which  favour  immortality, 
one  positive,  one  negative.  The  first  is  in  a 
sense  a reiteration  of  the  idealistic  argument 
for  the  eternity  of  consciousness,  namely,  that 
only  the  immediate,  that  is,  consciousness,  is 
real.  The  second  consists  in  a denial  of  the 
orthodox  scientific  doctrine  of  the  dependence 
of  consciousness  upon  some  form  of  nervous  or- 
ganisation. Let  us  take  them  in  their  order. 

(1)  If  we  say  that  consciousness  is  the  only 
reality,  death,  which  is  the  absence  of  conscious- 
ness, cannot  be  real;  its  reality,  at  any  rate, 
could  never  be  verified.  No  one  can  witness  his 
own  death.  And  even  if  one  could,  one  could 
surely  never  testify  to  his  own  death.  Disem- 
bodied spirits  (provided  they  existed  and  had 
the  power  of  communication)  could  indeed  bear 
testimony  to  the  possibility  of  a future  exist- 
ence, but  the  contrary  testimony  would  obvi- 
ously be  worthless.  As  Mr.  Schiller  remarks, 
while  the  ghost  of  Lord  Lyttelton  might  ad- 
monish his  friend  that  the  latter’s  doubts  in 
the  future  were  unfounded,  no  ghost  could  re- 


The  Problem  of  Death  163 


turn  and  possibly  convince  any  one  that  future 
life  was  an  illusion. 

(2)  The  most  serious  scientific  argument 
against  immortality,  the  argument  from  the 
alleged  dependence  of  consciousness  upon  the 
body,  particularly  the  hrain,  is  invalidated  in 
advance  by  Bergson’s  views  of  the  relation  of 
consciousness  to  the  hrain,  which  have  already 
been  briefly  Indicated  in  a previous  connection 
(Section  XII).  Consciousness  or  pure  mem- 
ory (as  distinguished  from  habit)  is  a purely 
psychical  mode  of  existence,  and  does  not  de- 
pend for  its  functioning  upon  the  material  dis- 
positions of  the  brain.  The  brain  does  not 
secrete  thought,  as  the  liver  secretes  bile,  to  use 
an  old  Illustration,  or  as  heated  water  produces 
steam,  it  merely  transmits  it,  as  a glass  window 
pane  transmits  light,  or  a metal  rod  transmits 
heat. 

The  transmission  hypothesis  is  not  contra- 
dicted, it  may  be  worth  while  to  remark  in  pass- 
ing, by  the  argument  from  nervous  pathology 
to  the  effect  that  brain  disturbances  produce 
disturbances  in  the  course  of  consciousness. 
This  is  to  be  expected  on  the  transmission 
theory  as  well  as  on  the  older  materialistic 
hypothesis  according  to  which  the  brain  pro- 
duces or  creates  consciousness.  A window  pane 
which  is  wrinkled  or  covered  with  dust  cannot 
transmit  light  so  well  as  one  which  is  perfect 


164 


Henri  Bergson 


and  free  from  dust.  The  pathological  facts, 
then,  prove  nothing  whatever  against  the  in- 
dependent existence  of  consciousness.  To 
adapt  somewhat  an  illustration  of  Mr.  McTag- 
gart’s,  it  would  be  as  hazardous  to  maintain 
that  there  would  be  no  consciousness  if  there 
were  no  brain  as  it  would  be  to  insist  that  if  a 
man  walked  out  of  his  house  he  could  not  see 
daylight  because  there  would  no  longer  be  any 
windows  through  which  he  could  see  it. 

Still,  let  us  suppose  that  consciousness,  which 
exists  otherwise  in  a vast  ocean  of  conscious- 
ness, can  come  to  the  surface,  as  it  were,  only 
through  media,  like  nervous  substance,  which 
it  finds  pervious  to  the  particular  kind  of 
energy  which  it  represents,  just  as  heat  or 
light  cannot  pass  through  matter  by  any  path, 
but  must  take  the  path  of  readiest  conductivity, 
whatever  path  it  finds  most  pervious  to  it.  Or 
let  us  adopt  the  analogous  hypothesis,  one  al- 
ready familiar  to  antiquity,  but  held  to-day  by 
William  James  and  Bergson,  that  it  is  the 
bodily  organisation  which  determines  the  indi- 
viduality of  each  self.  Evidently,  on  either 
one  of  these  hypotheses  the  individualised  form 
of  consciousness  which  we  mean  by  personality, 
and  whose  perpetuity  we  mean  to  assert  in  the 
doctrine  of  individual  immortality,  must  disap- 
pear with  the  destruction  of  the  body  to  which 
it  owes  its  individual  existence.  The  only  pos- 


The  Problem  of  Death  165 


sibility  of  securing  individual  immortality,  in 
this  case,  would  evidently  be  to  secure  the  per- 
petuation of  the  organism  to  which  the  indi- 
vidualised form  of  consciousness  is  attached. 
But  of  the  success  of  this  aspiration  men  are 
only  too  well  apprised.  If  by  death  we  mean 
the  destruction  of  the  body,  death’s  reality  is 
probably  for  most  men  beyond  the  reach  of 
metaphysical  argument.  To  doubt  death,  in 
this  sense,  would  be  at  least  as  difficult  as  it  is 
for  an  ardent  realist  to  doubt  the  existence  of 
the  chair  in  which  he  is  sitting,  a feat  which, 
according  to  Mr.  Russell,  is  possible  only  for 
those  who  have  had  a long  training  in  phi- 
losophy! Not  only  is  the  organism  destroyed 
by  matter  and  mechanism,  by  those  fatal  forces 
which  everywhere  environ  it,  but  life  itself  de- 
stroys other  life,  as  the  most  casual  observation 
of  nature  wiU  show.  “ Nothing  arises  in  na- 
ture,” says  Lucretius,  “ save  helped  by  the  death 
of  some  other  thing.”  Each  animal  life  lives 
at  the  sacrifice  of  other  lives,  until  it  shall  itself 
fall  victim  to  some  stronger,  hungrier  or  more 
malicious  foe.  And  even  if  there  were  no 
“ matter  and  mechanism  ” or  other  living  beings 
to  destroy  the  individual,  life,  as  modern  science 
tells  us,  at  least  in  its  more  highly  organised 
forms,  represents  such  an  unstable  equilibrium 
that  it  tends  to  break  down  of  itself  as  a sheer 
result  of  its  imperfect  organisation.  Weis- 


166 


Henri  Bergson 


mann’s  claim  that  natural  death  is  not  a neces- 
sity for  the  lowest  forms  of  life,  namely  pro- 
tozoa, has  been  apparently  corroborated  by 
recent  experiments  upon  paramoecium,  which 
have  shown  that  a single  individual  can  per- 
petuate itself  indefinitely  by  mere  division,  with- 
out conjugation,  if  environmental  conditions 
are  sufficiently  favourable,  if  the  culture  me- 
dium, for  example,  is  changed  frequently  and 
is  kept  free  from  bacteria.  But  organisms 
which  have  passed  this  low  stage  of  evolution 
cannot  hope  for  so  much.  “ Groups  of  cells  in 
our  bodies,”  a recent  scientist  writes,  “ are 
highly  specialised  into  certain  organs,  each  de- 
pendent upon  other  organs  for  its  existence. 
When  one  part  gives  out,  other  parts  must 
suffer,  until  finally  the  entire  system  succumbs. 
The  penalty  of  our  highly  developed  organisa- 
tion is  death.” 

It  appears,  then,  that  so  far  from  increasing 
our  chances  of  life  by  attaining  a higher  and 
more  complex  organisation,  our  only  chance  of 
an  indefinite  individual  survival  is  by  paying 
the  penalty  (if  this  were  possible)  of  degrada- 
tion to  the  rank  of  unicellular  creatures.  But 
an  immortality  such  as  amoeba  are  capable  of 
would,  I suppose,  be  hardly  regarded  as  worth 
the  having.  The  point  is  an  interesting  one, 
as  it  brings  out  very  clearly  something  which 
is  often  overlooked,  namely  that  men’s  desire 


The  Peoblem  of  Death  167 


for  immortality  is  based  upon  the  tacit  as- 
sumption that  future  life  will  be  very  happy, 
that  it  will  be  an  improvement  over  the  present 
life,  or  at  least  fully  as  desirable.  But  that  it 
will  be  is  something  which  can  be  rendered 
plausible  only  by  a number  of  special  considera- 
tions which  are  usually,  I believe,  not  inde- 
pendently examined. 

The  regular  way  for  life  to  perpetuate  itself, 
even  in  paramoecium,  is  by  conjugation  and  re- 
production. Bergson’s  general  theory  of  the 
sheaflike  character  of  biological  evolution  seems 
to  favour  the  view,  too,  that  life  perpetuates  it- 
self through  a succession  of  individuals,  and  that 
the  consciousness  of  the  individual  is  only  a ray, 
as  it  were,  from  an  original  unitary  stream  of 
consciousness  which  has  split  up  in  the  forward 
movement  of  evolution.  The  original  life  im- 
pulse was  a unitary  affair  which  is  shattered 
in  its  progress.  The  stream'  of  life  breaks,  is 
sometimes  turned  aside,  takes  on  fresh  mo- 
mentum, is  arrested,  wastes  itself,  is  ever  push- 
ing forward  and  ever  checked  by  the  strange 
obduracy  and  stubbornness  of  its  material  ob- 
stacle. The  “ one  far-off  divine  event  to  which 
the  whole  creation  moves  ” is  in  any  case  not 
the  increasing  harmony  and  unity  of  life  and 
living  beings,  as  if,  after  all,  “ all  the  living  ” 
did  not  “ hold  together  ” in  order  to  over- 
come every  resistance,  “ perhaps  even  death.” 


168 


Henri  Bergson 


“ Life,  in  proportion  to  its  progress,  is  scat- 
tered in  manifestations  which  undoubtedly  owe 
to  their  common  origin  the  fact  that  they  are 
complementary  to  each  other  in  certain  re- 
spects, but  which  are  none  the  less  mutually  in- 
compatible and  antagonistic.  So  the  discord 
among  species  will  go  on  increasing,  . . . The 
philosopher  who  begins  by  laying  down  as  a 
principle  that  each  detail  is  connected  with  some 
general  plan  of  the  whole,  goes  from  one  dis- 
appointment to  another  as  soon  as  he  begins 
to  examine  the  facts.”  The  unity  which  the 
diverging  directions  of  life  manifest  is  due  to 
the  faint  traces  which  they  still  show  of  their 
common  source.  “ The  hannony,”  to  cite  an 
oft-quoted  passage,  “ lies  behind,  not  before.” 

Thus  every  day  is  a day  of  creation  and  a 
day  of  death.  “ The  forms  of  life,”  according 
to  the  poetic  interpretation  of  Bergson  by  Mr. 
Burroughs,  “ are  like  the  clouds  in  the  summer 
sky,  ever  and  never  the  same ; the  vital  currents 
flow  forever,  and  we  rise  to  the  surface  like 
changing,  iridescent  bubbles  that  dance  and  play 
for  a moment,  and  are  succeeded  by  others,  and 
ever  others,”  new  souls  ever  arising  and  ceasing 
to  be,  or  else  passing  from  body  to  body,  in  an 
indefinite  or  possibly  endless  series  of  transmi- 
grations. 

The  belief  in  the  prolongation  of  the  indi- 
vidual’s identity  beyond  the  event  of  death 


The  Problem  of  Death  169 


tends  to  be  further  weakened  when  we  consider 
the  alterations,  and  the  consequent  loss  of  iden- 
tity, which  a self  suffers  even  during  its  present 
history.  In  order  to  deal  with  the  question  as 
intelligibly  as  possible,  let  us  first  ask  our- 
selves what  is  meant  by  the  term  individual  or 
personal  identity.  We  have  already  dealt  with 
this  question  to  some  extent  in  connection  with 
the  problem  of  change  (Section  XIV).  We 
there  suggested  that  the  unity  or  the  identity 
of  the  self  depends  upon  an  interest  or  purpose 
which  remains  identical  throughout  the  various 
mutations  which  the  self  suffers.  The  unity, 
we  said,  was  a teleological  unity  like  that  of  a 
drama  or  a game  of  skill,  a unity  imparted  to 
the  inner  life  by  an  underlying  plan,  aim  or  in- 
terest which  this  life  is  striving  to  realise  or 
fulfil.  Nothing  is  more  evident,  however,  than 
that  the  organisation  or  integration  of  the 
inner  life  is  always,  at  any  given  time,  imper- 
fect, to  say  nothing  of  the  fluctuations  in  these 
interests  and  Ideals  incident  to  growth  and 
maturation,  and  to  the  crises  to  which  our  inner 
life  is  always  liable.  Not  only  is  there  at  any 
given  time  a more  or  less  permanent  strati- 
fication of  the  self  into  systems  of  differ- 
ent and  more  or  less  incompatible  interests 
and  aims,  but  the  history  of  any  life  is  little 
more  than  a succession  of  characteristic  groups 
of  aims  and  Interests,  each  of  which  arises  only 


170 


Henri  Bergson 


in  order  to  dissolve  and  give  way  to  its  successor. 
It  is  no  doubt  true  that  the  unity  and  con- 
tinuity of  the  individual’s  inner  life  Have  fre- 
quently been  overemphasised.  Aside  from  the 
abnormal  cases  of  more  or  less  complete  dis- 
turbance of  memory  functions,  or  the  graver 
disturbances  of  alteration,  duplication  and  mul- 
tiplication of  the  self,  we  have  the  common  ex- 
periences of  defective  memory,  false  memory, 
and  the  numerous  changes  in  one’s  tastes,  judg- 
ments, emotional  attitudes,  ambitions,  ideals 
and  the  like,  incident  to  personal  development 
and  decline.  If  our  bodies  undergo  a complete 
change  every  seven  years,  as  a popular  my- 
thology has  it,  our  minds  and  characters  some- 
times, as  in  the  phenomena  of  “ conversion,” 
and  at  times  of  great  mental  and  emotional 
stress  due  to  unexpected  fortune  or  calamity, 
undergo  a far  more  radical  and  complete 
change,  and  are  always,  as  every  theory  of 
education  must  assume,  capable  of  changes  for 
the  better.  It  may  thus  easily  happen  that 
two  stages  of  a man’s  life  resemble  each  other 
less  than  two  parallel  stages  of  different  men’s 
lives,  so  that  “ individual  identity  ” would  here 
be  evidently  little  more  than  a name.  “ Turn 
thy  thoughts,”  says  the  Roman  Stoic,  “ to  the 
consideration  of  thy  life,  thy  life  as  a child,  as 
a youth,  thy  manhood,  thy  old  age,  for  in  these 
also  every  change  was  a death.  Is  this  any- 


The  Problem  of  Death  171 


thing  to  fear?  In  like  manner,  then,  neither 
are  the  termination  and  cessation  and  change 
of  thy  whole  life  a thing  to  be  afraid  of.” 

It  is  of  course  true  that  the  different  stages 
of  the  self’s  development  are  not  cut  off  from 
each  other  by  any  clear  lines  of  demarcation, 
sometliing  being  always  carried  over  from  one 
stage  of  development  to  another.  Even  if  the 
stream  of  consciousness  proper  continually  re- 
news itself,  the  results  of  past  experience  reg- 
ister themselves  in  the  nervous  system,  past 
actions  solidify  into  habits,  habits  form  char- 
acter. A man’s  past  being  known,  we  can 
diagnose  his  present  and  largely  anticipate  his 
future,  as  if  his  past  after  aU  projects  itself 
into  the  present.  Nero  is  a criminal  even  be- 
tween his  crimes,  as  his  next  act  would  prove. 
Memory,  furthermore,  does  not  entirely  fail. 
The  various  changes  which  the  self  undergoes 
are  never,  except  in  the  abnormal  cases  re- 
corded by  the  psychical  researchers,  so  radical 
and  profound  that  the  sense  of  personal  iden- 
tity is  entirely  lost.  The  tastes,  judgments, 
emotional  attitudes,  ideals,  for  example,  of  our 
past  history  are  still  recognised  as  ours.  We 
cannot  exchange  them  with  some  one  else’s 
similar  past  experiences,  no  matter  how  much 
we  may  profit  from  such  exchange,  and  might, 
accordingly,  wish  to  make  it. 

It  is  therefore  a possibility,  provided  we  can 


172 


Henri  Bergson 


believe  in  the  persistence  of  memory  independ- 
ently of  a nervous  organisation  (without  mem- 
ory “ future  ” life  would  not  be  a continuation 
of  the  present  life,  but  a different  life),  that  the 
self  may  survive  the  crisis  of  death,  as  it  has 
survived  many  lesser  ones.  And  I do  not  see 
how  any  one  can  disprove  that  it  will.^ 

Whatever  our  conclusions  on  that  may  be,  a 
man  can,  in  any  event,  be  certain  of  such  im- 
mortality as  is  implied  in  the  partial  transmis- 
sion of  his  traits  to  posterity,  and  in  the  pres- 
ervation of  his  works  and  his  influence.  So 
long  as  the  human  race  continues  to  exist,  the 
effects  of  an  individual  life  may  continue  to  exist 
too,  provided  these  effects  are  regarded  as 
worthy  of  preservation.  Science,  inventions, 
art,  letters,  institutions,  in  short,  civilisation  — 
these  are  but  the  products  and  work  of  past 
lives  which  have  been  hoarded  up  and  guarded 

1 There  is  one  argument  which  it  might  be  worth 
while  to  mention.  It  has  often  been  urged  (as,  for 
example,  by  "Mr.  McTaggart)  that  the  same  consider- 
ations which  go  to  prove  the  immortality  of  the  soul  also 
prove  its  pre-existence.  But  if  a genuine  continuance 
of  life  depends  upon  memory,  then  the  soul  has  no  pre- 
existence. For  we  do  not  remember  any  pre-existence. 
And  if  we  have  lived  previous  lives  and  have  forgotten 
them,  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  we  shall  remember 
anything  of  the  present  life  during  a subsequent  life. 
But  this  would  not  be  immortality.  Cf.,  for  the  whole 
subject.  Chapters  III  and  IV  in  Mr.  McTaggart’s  Some 
Dogmas  of  Religion,  a remarkably  interesting  and  acute 
work  which  is  entirely  too  little  known. 


The  Peoblem  of  Death  173 


against  destruction,  because  they  have  proved 
their  fitness  to  survive.  And  a comparatively 
small  number  of  men  may  hope  for  a transitory 
existence  beyond  their  death  in  the  memories  of 
other  men,  in  the  shape  of  posthumous  fame. 
But  this  too  will  cease  in  a short  time.  Noth- 
ing indeed  is  so  calculated  to  impress  upon  us 
the  transitoriness  of  a life,  even  in  the  form  of 
its  impersonal  products  and  effects,  as  the  fre- 
quency with  which  men  fail  of  being  credited 
with  their  achievements,  and  the  failure  of  those 
fragile  hopes,  gratitude  and  posthumous  fame. 
When  one  sees  even  these  perish  before  one’s 
eyes,  or  become  merged  in  the  general  mass,  it 
becomes  more  diflBcult  than  ever  to  believe  that 
a man’s  life  can  be  a permanent  element  in  a 
universe  “ in  which  nations  and  planets  are  but 
momentary  shapes.”  “ Of  human  life  the  time 
is  a point,  and  the  substance  is  in  a flux,  . . . 
and  the  soul  is  a whirl,  and  fortune  hard  to  di- 
vine, and  fame  a thing  devoid  of  judgment. 
And  to  say  all  in  a word,  everything  which  be- 
longs to  the  body  is  a stream,  and  what  belongs 
to  the  soul  is  a dream  and  vapour,  and  life  is  a 
warfare  and  a stranger’s  sojourn,  and  after- 
fame is  oblivion.” 

If  we  ask  the  question,  finally,  on  what  con- 
ditions the  survival  of  the  self,  in  so  far  as  it 
does  survive,  will  depend,  the  answer  can  be 
given  only  in  general  terms.  The  conditions 


174 


Henri  Bergson 


under  which  a living  organism  as  we  know  it  on 
earth  survives  is,  as  evolutionary  science  tells 
us,  that  its  parts  are  so  adjusted  to  each  other 
as  to  function  harmoniously  in  the  service  of  the 
organism  as  a whole,  and  that  the  organism  as 
a whole  is  adjusted  to  the  conditions  outside  it 
upon  which  it  depends.  The  self’s  survival,  too, 
one  may  say  in  general,  will  likely  depend  upon 
the  extent  to  which  it  has  achieved  unity  of  life 
through  the  consistent  and  orderly  pursuit  of 
some  aim,  interest  or  plan,  and  upon  the  de- 
gree to  which  this  aim,  interest  or  plan  coin- 
cides with  the  fundamental  purpose  of  the  uni- 
verse in  which  the  self  is  to  exist.  In  other 
words,  its  survival  will  depend  upon  the  con- 
sistent and  orderly  pursuit  of  those  objects  and 
interests  which  are  themselves  most  central  and 
normative  in  the  universe.  The  two  conditions 
which  seem  requisite  for  immortality  in  any  form, 
therefore,  are  a knowledge  of  the  true  struc- 
ture and  purpose  of  the  universe  in  which  our 
lot  is  cast,  and  an  identification  of  our  interests 
and  aims  with  those  elements  in  it  which  are 
most  lasting  and  significant.  In  the  noble  sym- 
bolism of  Scripture,  we  must  lay  up  treasures 
in  heaven  where  neither  moth  nor  rust  doth  cor- 
rupt, and  where  thieves  do  not  break  through 
nor  steal.  Immortality,  it  follows  from  this, 
may  then  be  conditional  and  a matter  of  degree. 
Moreover,  it  is  not  something  which  is  thrust 


The  Peoblem  of  Death  175 


upon  us  whether  we  will  or  no.  It  is  not,  as 
the  Germans  say,  a Gabe  but  an  Aufgabe,  not 
a gift  but  an  achievement.  As  Professor 
Taylor  finely  says:  “ A future  existence  is  not 

a heritage  into  which  we  are  safe  to  step  when 
the  time  comes,  but  a conquest  to  be  won  by  the 
strenuous  devotion  of  life  to  the  acquisition  of 
a rich,  and  at  the  same  time  orderly  and  har- 
monious, moral  selfhood.  And  thus  the  belief 
in  a future  life,  in  so  far  as  it  acts  in  any  given 
case  as  a spur  to  such  strenuous  living,  might 
be  itself  a factor  in  bringing  about  its  own  ful- 
filment.” 

It  is  often  asserted  that  unless  Immortality 
were  true,  life  would  lose  its  value.  I cannot 
think  this  judgment  just.  If  life  has  been 
valuable,  its  value  is  not  diminished  or  de- 
stroyed by  life’s  termination.  Do  we  regard 
rare  cloud  effects  as  valueless  because  we  know 
them  to  be  evanescent Or  is  it  a loss  that  a 
flower  should  have  blossomed  even  if  its  beauty 
does  not  survive  the  passing  of  spring? 

Is  it  so  small  a thing 
To  have  enj  oyed  the  sun, 

To  have  lived  light  in  the  spring, 

To  have  loved,  to  have  thought,  to  have  done, 
To  have  advanced  true  friends,  and  beat  down 
baffling  foes? 

Life  is  what  it  is,  and  the  cessation  of  my  life 


176 


Henri  Bergson 


does  not  render  other  lives  valueless.  Neither 
does  it  render  the  universe  uninteresting  or  bad. 
And  since  life  is  not  an  unmixed  good,  death 
cannot  be  wholly  evil.  “ For  with  death,”  as 
Mr.  McTaggart  says,  “ we  leave  behind  us 
memory,  and  old  age,  and  fatigue.  And  surely 
death  acquires  a new  and  deeper  significance 
when  we  regard  it  no  longer  as  a single  and 
unexplained  break  in  an  unending  life,  but  as 
part  of  the  continually  recurring  rhythm  of 
progress  — as  inevitable,  as  natural,  and  as 
benevolent  as  sleep.  We  have  only  left  youth 
behind  us,  as  at  noon  we  have  left  the  sunrise. 
They  will  both  come  back,  and  they  do  not 
grow  old.” 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


II 


* 


3 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


(Only  the  more  important  English  titles  are 
included.) 

Bergson,  H.,  Time  and  Free  Will,  London,  1910. 

Bergson,  H.,  Matter  and  Memory,  London,  1911. 

Bergson,  H.,  Laughter;  An  Essay  on  the  Mean- 
ing of  the  Comic,  London,  1911. 

Bergson,  H.,  Introduction  to  Metaphysics,  New 
York,  1912. 

Bergson,  H.,  Creative  Evolution,  New  York, 
1911. 

Bergson,  H.,  Life  and  Consciousness,  Hibbert 
Journal,  Oct.,  1911. 

Bergson,  H.,  Professor  Bergson  on  the  Soul, 
Educational  Review,  Jan.,  1912. 

Babbit,  I.,  Bergson  and  Rousseau,  Nation,  Nov. 
14,  1912. 

Balfour,  A.  J.,  Creative  Evolution  and  Philo- 
sophic Doubt,  Hibbert  Journal,  Oct.,  1911. 
Same,  Living  Age,  Dec.  2,  1911. 

Balsillie,  David,  Professor  Bergson  on  Time 
and  Free  Will,  Mind,  July,  1911. 

Balsillie,  David,  An  Examination  of  Profes- 
sor Bergson’s  Philosophy,  London,  1912. 

Barr,  Nann  Clark,  The  Dualism  of  Bergson, 
Philosophical  Review,  Nov.,  1913. 

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180  Henri  Bergson 

Bode,  B.  H.,  L’evolution  creatrice,  Phil.  Rev., 
Jan.,  1908. 

Bosanquet,  B.,  The  Prediction  of  Human  Con- 
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Oct,  1910. 

Burns,  C.  D.,  Bergson:  A Criticism  of  His  Phi- 
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Burroughs,  John,  A Prophet  of  the  Soul,  Atl. 
Monthly,  Jan.,  1914. 

Calkins,  M.  W.,  Henri  Bergson,  Personalist, 
Phil.  Rev.,  Nov.,  1912. 

Carr,  H.  W.,  Bergson’s  Theory  of  Knowledge, 
Proc.  Aristotelian  Soc.,  1909. 

Carr,  H.  W.,  Bergson’s  Theory  of  Instinct, 
Proc.  Aristotelian  Soc.,  1910. 

Carr,  H.  W.,  The  Pliilosophy  of  Bergson,  Hibbert 
Journal,  July,  1910. 

Carr,  H.  W.,  Henri  Bergson:  The  Philosophy  of 
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Cory,  C.  E.,  Bergson’s  Intellect  and  Matter,  Phil. 
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Dodson,  G.  R.,  Bergson  and  the  Modern  Spirit, 
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Dolson,  G.  N.,  The  Philosophy  of  Henri  Berg- 
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Elliot,  H.  S.  R.,  Modern  Science  and  the  Illu- 
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Fawcett,  E.  D.,  Matter  and  Memory,  Mind, 
April,  1912. 

Gerrard,  I.  J.,  Bergson:  An  Exposition  and  Crit- 
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INDEX 


INDEX 


Absolutism,  142. 

Acquaintance  with,  35,  134. 

Activism,  7. 

Analysis,  35,  52,  70,  113, 
114,  115,  135,  136,  n.  1. 
See  also  intellect. 

Anaximander,  18. 

Animism,  71-72,  77-82,  85, 
114. 

Aristotle,  18,  120,  160. 

Arnold,  M.,  quoted,  175. 

Atoms,  61. 

Attention,  selective  activity 
of,  26,  123-124. 

Becoming.  See  change. 

Berkeley,  9. 

Brain,  relation  of  mind  to, 
106-107,  163-4. 

Browning,  3,  80-81,  98. 

Burroughs,  J.,  168. 

Chambers,  90. 

Change,  permanence  and, 
17-21,  27,  34,  47-51,  109, 
n.  1,  113-114,  119-126, 
134-135,  169-172. 

Conception,  relation  to  per- 
ception, 25-28,  134. 

Concepts,  26,  34,  51,  53; 
doctrine  of  stationary, 
criticised,  129-136;  “flu- 


id,” 135;  reification  of, 
by  Bergson,  160. 

Condillac,  9. 

Consciousness.  See  mind 
and  experience. 

Conservation,  doctrine  of 
eternal,  19,  n.  1,  34,  109, 
n.  1,  125-26. 

Continuity.  ■ See  perma- 
nence. 

Convergence,  phenomenon 
of,  in  evolution,  96-97. 

Creation,  13,  18-20,  85-92, 
143-145. 

Darwin,  18. 

Death,  problem  of,  153—176. 

Democritus,  120. 

Design.  See  teleology. 

Determinism,  freedom  and, 
103-110,  116,  146-148. 

Dilthey,  60. 

Disillusionment,  as  trait  of 
modern  mind,  3. 

Dualism,  in  Bergson,  158- 
162. 

Durability,  eternal.  See 
conservation. 

Duration,  32,  32,  n.  1,  41, 
49,  70,  113-15. 

Einfuhlung,  78—82. 


190 


Index 


Elan  vital,  87. 

Element,  36,  40,  52,  61. 

Emanationism,  18. 

Emerson,  3,  4,  148. 

Empedocles,  120.  ■ 

Empiricism,  40^.3. 

End.  See  teleology. 

Eucken,  6,  7,  12. 

Evolution,  as  creative,  13, 
85-92,  115,  143-145; 

sheaf-like  character  of, 
97,  167 ; as  indeterminate, 
97-99,  116,  145. 

Evolutionism,  radical,  17- 

20. 

Experience,  reconstruction 
of  primordial,  25-28 ; 
continuity  of  inner,  31- 
36,70,114,122-124;  qual- 
itative diversity  of,  32, 
70;  immediacy  of,  35, 
134,  136,  n.  1. 

Fame,  3-4 ; posthumous, 
173. 

Freedom,  determinism  and, 
103-110,  116,  146-48. 

Finalism.  See  teleology. 

Fittest,  survival  of,  87-88. 

God,  18-20,  145. 

Goethe,  3,  90. 

Hegel,  18,  43,  60. 

Henderson,  89. 

Heraclitus,  17. 

Heredity,  87-88,  172;  so- 
cial, 172-73. 

Herz,  60. 


Hibben,  132-133. 

Hume,  9. 

Idealism,  the  new,  10-13. 

Identity,  123-124,  168-172. 
See  also  permanence. 

Immediacy,  higher  and 
lower,  136,  n.  1;  reality 
as,  156-157.  See  also  du- 
ration and  intuition. 

Immortality,  13,  106,  153- 
176;  individual,  162-175; 
“spiritualistic”  evidence 
for,  162-163;  social,  172- 
73;  conditions  of,  173- 
175;  conditional,  174;  de- 
grees of,  174;  an  achieve- 
ment, 174-175.  See  also 
life. 

Individuality,  as  depend- 
ing on  bodily  organisa- 
tion, 164. 

Instinct,  genetic  relation 
of,  to  intelligence,  98. 

Intellect,  20-21,  25-62,  68- 
69.  See  also  concepts, 
science  and  intuition. 

Intelligence  and  instinct, 
genetic  relation  of,  98. 

Intuition,  32,  65-82,  113, 
114;  results  of,  incom- 
municable, 67,  68,  n.  1, 
133-134;  identical  with 
reason,  135-36. 

Jakobi,  58. 

James,  6,  7,  8,  9,  12,  26,  35, 
53,  67,  106,  129-30,  140- 
41,  142,  148,  156,  164. 


Index 


Kant,  105,  133. 

Klein,  F.,  60. 

Knowledge,  two  uses  of,  5. 

Krueger,  F.,  XIII. 

Laas,  60. 

Lamarck,  90. 

Law,  hypothetical  charac- 
ter of  natural,  58-60. 

Leibniz,  73-3,  114. 

Life,  contrasted  with  mat- 
ter, 85-6,  158-160;  value 
of,  139-150,  175-76;  uni- 
ty of,  167 ; survival  of, 
distinguished  from  indi- 
vidual immortality,  155- 
56.  See  also  immortality. 

Lipps,  60. 

Literature,  dearth  of  im- 
aginative, 3-5. 

Locke,  9. 

Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  58,  59, 
146. 

Lovejoy,  XII,  17,  18,  109- 

10. 

Lucretius,  165. 

Mach,  60. 

Malebranche,  9. 

Marchesini,  60. 

Marcus  Aurelius,  156,  170, 
173. 

Matter,  contrasted  with 
life,  85-6,  158-160. 

McTaggart,  156,  164,  173, 
n.  1,  176. 

Mechanism  and  teleology, 
95-9,  116. 

Memory,  relation  to  con- 
ception, 36 ; dependence 


191 

of  future  life  upon,  173. 

Mill,  J.  S.,  9. 

Mind,  place  of,  in  uni- 
verse, 11;  relation  to 
brain,  106-7,  163-64;  mo- 
saic representation  of, 
31-43,  104,  110,  116;  uni- 
ty of,  133-34, 168-73.  See 
also  experience. 

Miracle,  147-48.  See  also 
nature,  uniformity  of. 

Monad,  representative  char- 
acter of,  73-3,  114-15. 

Monism,  spiritual,  156-57, 
161,  163.  See  also  life 
and  matter. 

Motion,  and  rest,  48-51, 
114,  131. 

Movement,  pure,  33.  See 
also  motion. 

Mutation.  See  change  and 
permanence. 

Miinsterberg,  61-3. 

Naturalism,  10-13,  143-44. 

Nature,  uniformity  of, 
146-47.  See  also  mira- 
cle. 

Neo-criticists,  French, 
XIII. 

Nietzsche,  10. 

Nominalism,  of  Bergson, 
160. 

Novelty,  93.  See  also  cre- 
ation and  science. 

Occultism,  148. 

Optimism,  13,  141-43. 

Ostwald,  60. 


192 


Index 


Parallelism,  psychophysi- 
cal, 105. 

Partition,  contrasted  with 
analysis,  35. 

Paulsen,  5,  90-91. 

Perception  and  conception, 
25-28,  134. 

Permanence  and  change, 
17-21,  34,  109,  n.  1,  119- 
126,  134-35,  169-72. 

Pessimism,  optimism  and, 
141-43. 

Philosophy,  indifPerence  to- 
ward, 5 ; characteristics 
of  the  new,  7-13. 

Plato,  120,  130-31,  153, 160. 

Poincar^,  60. 

Pragmatism,  7,  133. 

Pre-existence,  172,  n.  1. 

Prophesy,  92,  145. 

Psychology,  31-43,  103-04, 
114. 

Purpose.  See  teleology. 

Rationalism,  40-43. 

Reason,  135.  See  also  in- 
tellect and  analysis. 

Religion,  philosophy  of, 
139-76;  definition  of, 
140. 

Rest  and  motion,  48-51, 
114. 

Romanticism,  XII,  10-13. 

Rousseau,  149. 

Royce,  96,  135-36. 

Russell,  B.,  11,  27,  60,  165. 

Santayana,  8,  n.  1,  80,  99, 
159. 


Schelling,  XII,  58. 

Schiller,  3,  78. 

Schiller,  F.  C.  S.,  162. 

Science,  attitude  of  new 
philosophy  towards,  7-8; 
and  the  inner  life,  31- 
43;  and  the  external 
world,  47-62;  and  spon- 
taneity, 144-45. 

Secrdtan,  140. 

Selection,  natural,  87-8. 

Self,  41-3,  104;  stratifica- 
tion of,  168-71;  unity  of, 
171,  174.  See  also  ex- 
perience. 

Soul.  See  mind,  self  and 
experience. 

Spencer,  18. 

Spinoza,  99. 

States,  20,  51;  mental,  41, 
104,  114. 

Style,  philosophic,  9. 

Suggestion,  hypnotic,  108. 

Swinburne,  quoted,  157. 

Sympathy,  intellectual,  69, 
71-2,  77-82,  113;  aesthet- 
ic, 78. 

Synthese,  schopferische, 

110. 

Taylor,  A.  E.,  121,  122, 
136,  n.  1,  175. 

Teleology,  13 ; mechanism 
and,  95-99,  116;  indeter- 
minate, 97-99,  116,  145. 

Tennyson,  3,  73;  quoted, 
95. 

Theology,  traditional,  139, 
149. 


Index 


193 


Time,  mathematical,  as 
distinguished  from  real, 
33,  49. 

Titchener,  78. 

Unity.  See  permanence, 
identity  and  continuity. 

Universe,  goodness  of,  156. 
See  also  optimism  and 
pessimism. 


Vaihinger,  60,  61. 

Vitalism,  90.  See  also  an- 
imism and  creation. 
Voluntarism,  7. 

Weismann,  165-66. 

Will,  freedom  of,  103-110, 
116,  146-47. 

Zeno,  49. 


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